190 BIRDS 



The Red-shouldered Hawk 



Length — Male 18 to 20 inches; female 20 to 22 inches. 



Male and Female — ^Rich dark reddish brown above, the 

 feathers more or less edged with rusty, buff, and whitish; 

 lesser wing coverts rusty red, forming a conspicuous 

 patch on shoulders; four outer feathers of wings notched 

 and all barred with black and white; tail dark with 

 white bars; under parts rusty or buff, the throat streaked 

 with blackish, elsewhere irregularly barred with white. 

 Immature birds plain dark brown above, the wing patch 

 sometimes indicated, sometimes not; head, neck, and 

 under parts pale buff, fully streaked with dark brown; 

 wing and tail quills crossed with many hght and dark 

 bars. 



Range — ^Eastern North America from Manitoba and Nova 

 Scotia to the Gulf states and Mexico, westward to Texas 

 and the Great Plains; nests throughout its range. 



Season — ^Permanent resident. 

 {See -plates, pages 194-195.) 



Let any one say "Hawk" to the average farmer and he 

 looks for his gun. For many years it was supposed that 

 every member of the hawk family was a villain and fair 

 game, but the white searchlight of science shows us that 

 most of the tribe are the farmers' allies, which, with the 

 owls, share the task of keeping in check the mice, moles, 

 gophers, snakes, and the larger insect pests. Nature 

 keeps her vast domain patrolled by these vigilant watch- 

 ers by day and by night. Guns may well be tiu-ned on 

 those blood-thirsty fiends in feathers, Cooper's hawk, the 

 sharp-shinned hawk, and the goshawk, that not only eat our 



