American Sparrow-Hawk 191 
on the fore-neck and breast only ; wing 7-75. A young male is like the 
adult male, but is rather darker rufous, has hardly any black spots 
on the wings, and has a tawny tip to the tail instead of white; below 
the spots are larger and more conspicuous, though hardly more 
numerous, A young female is slightly darker rufous above, and has 
the bars blacker and the crown-patch with black shaft-marks, 
Distribution.—From Alaska, Hudson Bay, and Newfoundland 
southwards, east of the Rocky Mountains to northern South America ; 
replaced west of the Rockies by F’. s. phalena, if really distinguishable. 
In Colorado the Sparrow-Hawk is perhaps the commonest of all 
the raptorial birds, breeding in the plains and mountains up to about 
10,000 feet. It is chiefly a summer migrant, arriving towards the end 
of March; near Colorado Springs, March 26th (Aiken), Loveland, 
March 21st (W. G. Smith), and leaving again late in October. <A few 
winter in the south of the State and even as far north as Boulder 
(Henderson) and Barr (Hersey) ; Lowe (01) saw two on January 14th, 
near Beulah. 
The following are breeding records: Boulder co. (Gale), Twin Lakes 
(Scott), Garden of the Gods, near Manitou (Allen), Wet Mountains to 
10,000 feet (Lowe), Salida (Frey). 
Habits—The Sparrow-Hawk spends most of his 
time on a fence-post or telegraph pole, watching for 
his prey, which consists almost exclusively of grass- 
hoppers and beetles ; occasionally small birds and mice 
are taken, but 215 out of 320 stomachs examined by 
Fisher contained only insects. Sometimes he hovers 
over a field or meadow; then darts suddenly down and 
seizing the victim, retires to a convenient perch 
to devour it. 
Like so many other insect-eating birds, the Sparrow- 
Hawk goes high up above timber line in late summer, 
to feast on the grasshoppers there. 
In most cases the Sparrow-Hawk utilizes the old holes 
of Flickers and other Woodpeckers for its eggs. Some- 
times it uses a natural hole in a stub or tree ; sometimes 
the crevices and cracks in rocks, as in the Garden of the 
Gods. Gale found it breeding on the bottom of an old 
Flicker-hole—it was flat and hard, and there was no nest 
