166 PIGEON HAWK. 
PIGEON HAWK.—FALCO COLUMBARIUS — Fic. 66.— Matz. 
Linn. Syst p. 128, No. 21.— Lath. Syn. i. p..101, No, 86.—L’Epervier de la 
Garoline, Briss. Orn. i. p. 238.— Catesb. i. p. 3, t. 3.— Bartram, p. 290.— 
Turton, sSyst. i: p. 162.— Peale’s Museum, No. 352. 
FALCO COLUMBARIUS, —lannavs. 
Pigeon Hawk, Penn. Arct. Zool ii. 222.— Falco Columbarius, Bonap. Synop. 
a + p:28.— North. Zool. ii. p. 35. : 
Tuis small Hawk possesses great spirit and rapidity of flight. He 
is generally migratory in the Middle and Northern States, arriving in 
Pennsylvania early in spring, and extending his migrations as far north, 
as Hudson’s Bay. After building, and rearing his young, he retires to 
the south early in November. Small birds and mice are his principal 
food. When the Reed Birds, Grakles, and Red-winged Blackbirds 
congregate in large flights, he is often observed hovering in their rear, 
or on their flanks, picking up the weak, the wounded, or stragglers, 
and frequently making a sudden and fatal sweep into the very midst 
of their multitudes. The flocks of Robins and Pigeons are honored 
with the same attentions from this marauder, whose daily excursions 
are entirely regulated by the movements of the great body on whose 
unfortunate meinbers, he fattens. The individual from which the 
drawing on the plate was taken, was shot in the meadows below Phil- 
adelphia in the month of August. He was carrying off a Blackbird 
(Oriolus pheniceus) from the flock, and, though mortally wounded and 
dying, held his prey fast till his last-expiring breath, having struck his 
claws into its very heart. This was found to bea male. Sometimes 
when shot at, and not hurt, he will fly in circles ovey the sportsman’s 
head, shrieking out with great violence, asif highly irritated. He fre- 
quently flies low, skimming a little above the field. I have never seen 
his nest.* ' 
The Pigeon Hawk is eleven inches Jong, and twenty-three broad ; 
the whole upper parts are of a deep dark brown. except the tail, which 
is crossed with bars of white ; the inner vanes of the quill-feathers are 
marked with round spots of reddish brown; the bill is short, strongly 
toothed, of a light blue color, and tipped with black; the skin surround- 
ing the eye, greenish ; cere, the same; temples and line over the eye, 
proceedings of the Committee of Science of the Zoological Society, one under the 
name of Sitta castaneoventris, from India, which, if true to the type, may prove an 
addition. In the satne place, that gentleman, also describes a secoud species of 
Certhia, (C. spilonata,) but adds, “ the tail of this bird is soft and flexible.” We 
have noticed, in a former note, the. C. familiaris as-the only known species, and 
‘we doubt if that now mentioned can rank with it.— Fp, 3 
* Mr. Hutchins, in his notes on the Hudson’s Bay birds, informs us that this spe; 
cies makes its nest in hollow rocks and trees; of sticks and grass, lined with feathers, 
laying from two to four white eggs, thinly marked: with red spots. . ~ 
This species has the form ot the,Falcons, with the bill strongly toothed, but 
somewhat of the plumage of the Sparrow Hawks. The color of the eggs is also 
that of the.latter.— Ep. : Se: 
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