108 University of California Publications in Zoology [Vol.30 



coloration seen in calurus is described as young harlami, a mistake 

 that is pointed out in Baird, BSrewer and Ridgway (1874, vol. 3, 

 p. 294). 



At first glance it seems startling to ascribe to the Harlan hawk a 

 far northern breeding habitat. In the A. 0. U. Check-list (1910, 

 p. 158) the range given is as follows: "Lower Mississippi Valley and 

 Gulf States, from Louisiana to Georgia and Florida; casual in Colo- 

 rado, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Pennsylvania." 

 I cannot find, though, that there are definite published accounts of the 

 breeding of Iwrlani in any region whatever. Audubon's belief that 

 the birds he shot near St. Francisville, Louisiana, had bred in that 

 vicinity was based on hearsay. He shot his birds in November (see 

 Coues, 1880, pp. 202-203) and had no first-hand knowledge of their 

 nesting. Beyer, Allison and Kopman (1908, p. 442) in their "List of 

 the Birds of Louisiana" state: "None of the writers has evidence of 

 its breeding in Louisiana." It seems to me, in the absence of any 

 positive published statements, that the assumption that the breeding 

 ground of the Harlan hawk is in the Gulf states is an utter mistake. 



Besides the Atlin series there are at hand three specimens of hawks 

 from the northwest that I think are referable to harlami. These are 

 two young birds (nestlings), from a point sixty miles below Forty- 

 mile, Yukon Territory, July 28, 1894, collected by C. L. Hall ( Mus. 

 Vert. Zool. nos. 4966, 4967) ; and an immature male (Mus. Vert. Zool. 

 no. 42048), a migrant, shot by the present writer in Kispiox Valley, 

 near Hazelton, British Columbia, August 27, 1921 (see Swarth, 1924, 

 p. 336). 



These birds in life were extremely puzzling. While there was 

 much to suggest Buteo ioream in the actions of the living bird, the 

 uniformly dark coloration brought B. swainsoni to mind, and an occa- 

 sional glimpse of white marked rectrices in a bird wheeling in distant 

 flight was distinctly suggestive of Archibuteo.. With specimens in 

 hand, Buteo swainsoni and Archibuteo were quickly eliminated, of 

 course, but other questions remained. 



The status of the Harlan hawk as a distinct subspecies has been 

 questioned. Our own findings in the Atlin region, while not assumed 

 to be a final disposal of all the difficulties involved, do seem to place 

 this form in a more secure position as a geographic race than it has 

 yet enjoyed. The birds were abundant and nesting over a wide 

 expanse of territory, and within that region they were the only form 

 of Buteo lorealis that was seen. Parents and young were seen together 



