WINTER FALCON. 77 



enormously with these reptiles, that the prominency of his craw makes 

 a large bunch, and he appears to fly with difficulty. I have taken the 

 broken fragments, and whole carcasses, of ten frogs, of different dimen- 

 sions, from the crop of a single individual. Of his genius and other 

 exploits I am unable to say much. He appears to be a fearless and 

 active bird, silent, and not very shy. One which I kept for some time, 

 and which was slightly wounded, disdained all attempts made to recon- 

 cile him to confinement ; and would not sufiier a person to approach, 

 without being highly irritated ; throwing himself backward, and strik- 

 ing with expanded talons, with great fury. Though shorter winged 

 than some of his tribe, yet I have ho doubt, but, with proper care, he 

 might be trained to strike nobler game, in a bold style, and with great 

 effect. But the education of Hawks in this country may well be post- 

 poned for a time, until fewer improvements remain to be made in that 

 of the human subject. 



Length of the Winter Hawk twenty inches, extent forty-one inches, 

 or nearly three feet six inches ; cere and legs yellow, the latter long, 

 and feathered for an inch below the knee ; bill bluish black, small, fur- 

 nished with a tooth in the upper mandible ; eye bright amber, cartilage 

 over the eye very prominent, and of a dull green ; head, sides of the 

 neck, and throat, dark brown, streaked with white ; lesser coverts with 

 a strong glow of ferruginous ; secondaries pale brown, indistinctly 

 barred with darker ; primaries brownish orange, spotted with black, 

 wholly black at the tips ; tail long, slightly rounded, barred alternately 

 with dark and pale brown, inner vanes white, exterior feathers brownish 

 orange ; wings, when closed, reach rather beyond the middle of the 

 tail ; tail-coverts white, marked with heart-shaped spots of brown ; 

 breast and belly white, with numerous long drops of brown, the shafts 

 blackish ; femoral feathers large, pale yellow ochre, marked with 

 numerous minute streaks of pale brown ; claws black. The legs of 

 this bird are represented by different authors as slender ; but I saw no 

 appearance of this in those I examined. 



The female is considerably darker above, and about two inches 

 longer. 



