194 BIRDS 



ing only because every one should be able to distinguish 

 foe from friend. 



Instead of perching on lookouts, as the red-tailed and 

 red-shouldered hawks do. Cooper's hawk, the big blue 

 darter, and the smaller sharp-shinned hawk or little blue 

 darter dash after their victims on the wing, chasing them 

 across open stretches where such swift, dexterous, dodging 

 flyers are sure to overtake them. Or they will flash out of 

 a clear sky like feathered Hghtning and boldly strike a 

 chicken, though it be pecking com near a farmer's feet. 

 These two marauders and the big slate-colored goshawk, 

 also called the blue hen hawk, stab their cruel talons 

 through the vitals of more valuable poultry, song and 

 game birds, than any one would care to read about. 

 These three villains too often escape the charge of shot 

 they so richly deserve. 



The female Cooper's hawk is about nineteen inches long 

 and her mate a finger-length smaller, but not nearly so 

 •mall as the little blue darter, the sharp-shinned hawk, only 

 about a foot in length, but which it very closely resembles 

 in plumage and villainy. Both species have slaty gray 

 upper parts with deep bars across their wings and ashy 

 gray tails. The latter differ in outline, however. Cooper's 

 hawk having a rounded tail with whitish tip, and the sharp- 

 shinned "pigeon hawk" a square tail. In maturity 

 Cooper's hawk wears a blackish crown. Both species have 

 white throats with dark streaks. 



Let the guns be turned toward these bloodthirsty, auda- 

 cious miscreants, and away from the red-tailed and red- 

 shouldered species, beneficient, majestic kings of the air! 

 Longfellow, in "The Birds of Killingworth," among the 

 *' Tales of a Wayside Inn," has written a defence of the 



