256 THE GOSHAWEK, 
are red-brown covered with numerous irregular blue-black bars. The males 
do not assume their appropriate plumage until they have completed their first 
year. The length of the male bird is about thirteen inches, and that of the 
female fifteen inches. 
GOSHAWK. —(Astur palumbarius.) 
We now come to a large and important genus of Hawks, which is repre- 
sented in England by the GOSHAWK. 
This handsome bird is even larger than the jer-falcon, the length of an 
adult male being eighteen inches, and that of his mate rather more than two 
feet. It is not, however, so powerful or so swift-winged a bird as the jer- 
falcon, and its mode of taking prey is entirely different, 
