524. 
548 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — RAPTORES — ACCIPITRES. 
thickly and sharply marked with blackish-brown. These large dark spots, for the most part 
cireular or guttiform, crowd across the forebreast, scatter on the middle belly, enlarge to cross- 
bars on the flanks, become broad arrow-heads on the lower belly and tibie, and are wanting 
on the throat, which is only marked with a sharp, narrow, blackish pencilling along the median 
line. Quills brownish-black, the outer webs with an ashy shade, the inner webs toward the 
base grayish, paler, and marbled with white, and also showing obscure dark cross-bars; their 
shafts black on top, nearly white underneath. Tail-feathers like the quills, but more decidedly 
shaded with ashy or slate-gray, and tipped with whitish ; their numerous dark cross-bars show 
more plainly than those of the quills, but are not so evident as they are in the old birds. 
Nestlings are covered with white fluffy down. Western N. Am., Mississippi Valley to the 
Pacific, abundant; in many regions the commonest and most characteristic of the large hawks ; 
occasionally eastward through the N. States to Canada and New England. Nests indifferently 
on the ground, cliffs, bushes, trees; nest indistinguishable from that of other large hawks; eggs 
usually 2, —I have never found more, sometimes only one; they are about 2.25 & 1.75, resem- 
bling hen’s eggs, being nearly colorless and unmarked, like those of the marsh hawk; some- 
times stained with rusty-brownish, probably never marked all over nor boldly blotched anywhere. 
This buzzard represents the European B. vulgaris (fig. 381) in N. Am., being, in fact, little 
different. (It is Falco buteo Aud., folio pl. 372; B. vulgaris Sw., F. B. A., pl. 27; Aud., 8vo, 
pl. 6; B. montanus Nutt., 1840, not of authors; B. bairdi Hoy (young); ? B. ozypterus Cass. 
(young); B. insignatus Cass., Ill. pl. 31 (melanistic); B. guttwralis Maxim.; B. obsoletus 
Sharpe, 1874 (not Falco obsoletus Gm.). It is probably also B. ‘ vulgaris” of Maynard, Bull. 
Nutt. Club, i, 1876, p. 2; and of Ridg., ibid. p. 32.) 
B. pennsylva/nicus. (Lat. pennsylvamicus, of Wm. Penn’s woods.) BROoAD-WINGED 
Buzzarp. Adult $@ : Above, dark brown, the feathers with blackish shaft-lines, and pale 
grayish-brown or even lighter edgings, those of hind head and nape cottony-white basally ; 
usually also some feathers with fulvous edgings, especially on the hind neck; upper tail-coverts 
barred or spotted with white. Primaries and secondaries blackish on outer webs and at ends, 
most of the inner webs white in large area, more or less perfectly barred with dusky; concealed 
parts of scapulars thus barred on both webs. Exposed portion of tail with three blackish 
zones, the terminal one broadest, alternating narrower pale gray or grayish-white zones, one of 
these terminal ; from below these zones appear whitish, but from above grayish. Under parts 
mixed white and fulvous-brown, or dull chestnut, the latter nearly as pronounced as in B. linea- 
tus, the pattern being rather that of Accipiter fuscus or A. coopert; the fulvous in excess ante- 
riorly, the white prevailing posteriorly and nearly or quite immaculate on crisswn; the middle 
regions with the white in oval paired spots or incomplete bars on each feather, the flanks and 
tibia pretty regularly barred with the two colors; most of the feathers black-shafted, producing 
a fine penciling, this black increasing to decided streaking on the white throat, and forming 
noticeable maxillary patches. Lining of wings mostly white, but with some reddish and black- 
ish spotting. Bill mostly dark; feet yellow; claws black. Length of ¢ 14.00; extent 33.00; 
wing 10.50-11.00; tail 6.50-7.00; tarsus 2.30; middle toe without claw 1.20. 9 larger; 
wing 11.00-11.50; tail 7.00-7.50. Young: Differs as usual in the genus, in lacking the 
special coloration and pattern of the under parts, tail-pattern different, wing-pattern much the 
same. Upper parts blackish-brown, highly variegated with fulvous, tawny, or whitish edgings 
of all the feathers, on the head and neck the light and dark colors in streaks about balancing 
each other. Under parts white, more or less buff-toned, with more or fewer linear or clubbed 
fuscous markings on the breast and sides, changing to arrow-heads on the flanks and sides, 
the amount of this marking wholly indeterminate. Tail crossed with numerous light and dark 
bars (six or eight of each exposed), on both webs of middle feathers and outer webs of the others ; 
these on their inner webs largely white, with consequently better pronounced dark bars; all 
the feathers tipped with white. Eastern N. Am. and throughout Middle America, common; 
