140 



THE CANADIAN SPORTSMAN AND NATURALIST. 



and powerful claw of its race in the highest 

 beauty and perfection in my experience, is very 

 rare. There was a good specimen in the Halifax 

 Museum 1870, and Mr. Downs has noted it. 

 This falcon is the anatum and great footed 

 hawk of American writers. The pigeon hawk 

 (jF. columbarius) is perhaps the most common 

 hawk of our Province. My notes are Septem- 

 ber and November, but still I believe he nests 

 with us or is found during the time of incuba- 

 tion. He is a true falcon, in dash, temerity 

 and force. He will strike a duck upon tne 

 wing and lacerate and tear up the whole back 

 and neck region so as to produce death. He 

 occurs here with a variation of colour. In the 

 Provincial Museum are specimens with four 

 obscure whitish bars upon tail. A specimen 

 in Mr. J. M. Jones' collection agrees with this ; 

 the bars broader. Another, shot by Mr. Alfred 

 Gilpin, has five white bars, the filth obscured 

 ' by tail coverts. Another specimen, shot by 

 John Baxter, Nov. 4th, 1880, has five dark- 

 bars crossing the tail, the fifth hid by tail 

 coverts. In this specimen the colour was 

 more plumbeous on back and rump and tail, 

 and more whitish below. I have not specimens 

 enough to show any analogy between the plum- 

 beous coloured back and darker tail liars, and 

 whiter colour below. Coues asserts the female 

 has white bars, Reeks (Zoologist, 1869,) des- 

 cribes it at Newfoundland, as havingdark bars. 

 The question is also complicated by Richard- 

 son's merlin or Aesalon of the old world, very 

 allied to this species, being found in America, 

 though denied by Coues. We find this very 

 active and bold falcon on the flats of the sea 

 shores, pouncing serially upon the Trixga, 

 Totani and other shore birds in their autumn 

 migration.' He lingers into November before 

 be leaves us. There is no prettier sight than 

 on a warm September day, in the Digbj r Basin, 

 when the great Bay of Fundy tide has filled 

 up to the very rushes the salt water estuaries 

 and creeks; when the peeps and shore birds 

 are like snowy drifts on the edge of the tide, 

 waiting for the ebb; when the herons, coming 

 full twenty miles from their heronry by the 

 forest lake side, are roosting in awkward groups 

 on the spruce pines and birches overhanging 

 the tideway, also waiting for the ebb ; than an 

 instant alarm of shrieks from the herons, 

 followed by an instant barking of the crows, 

 rising and falling about the tops of the pines, 

 disturb ycu, as floating in your canoe you are 

 watching how a feathery gull, or an early scoter, 

 is breaking the majestic mirror all around you. j 



Malti Pictou, your Indian, says, " May bee 

 herons don't like the hawk " ; and then, as you 

 turn your eyes landward, you see the hawk 

 sailing in short circles around and then with a 

 sweep fetching down upon the herons, recover 

 ing himself and passing with lazily flap of 

 wing slowh- their roosting trees. He, too, is 

 waiting for the ebb. The sparrow hawk (F. 

 sparverius) is not rare with us ; my notes of 

 him are in September, but Mr. J. M. Jones 

 allows me to say, he has seen them during the 

 summer in the valley of Annapolis, with all 

 the habits of a resident bird, and probably 

 nesting. Its beautiful colouring and bold up- 

 right form and audacity makes him every- 

 where a marked species. Of the next family of 

 buzzards, I have identified three species. This 

 family, more robust than the last and more 

 powerful in form, have less audacity, sitting for 

 hours listlessly on a dead tree, living on the 

 smaller mammals and reptiles which, ffying 

 low, they snatch rather than pounce upon, 

 are still audacious plunderers of the farm yard. 

 Of the Red-shouldered hawk (B. lineaius) I 

 have only Mr. Downs' notes. I have never 

 seen it. The winter falcon (A. lagopus) is seen 

 rarely here. A specimen in the Halifax 

 Museum agrees with Richardson's figure and 

 description, the colours scarcely so bright. I 

 saw one specimen of a black hawk in Mr. 

 Roue's collection, at Halifax, 1870. It was 

 alive and therefore could not be examined 

 closely, but it looked so very unlike, in 

 size and figure, the lagopus, that I 

 could scarcely call it a nigritism of that 

 bird. But still I have nothing explicit enough 

 to call it a true species, especially as the best 

 writers unite in not considering it such. I can 

 not but think there is a lost hawk in this 

 family. The Red-tail hawk (B. borealis) is a 

 common hawk with us. My notes give him 

 the middle of April, Summer and November 

 resident, but leaving us in winter. Our speci- 

 mens, in the finest nuptial plumage, differ 

 from Richardson's description both in the 

 colour of tail and breast. They have very 

 much more brown and ferruginous on breast, 

 and the tails of the brightest chestnut red, 

 the two outer tail feathers obscurely barred. 

 Richardson says of his specimen, killed at 

 Carleton house, May, 1827, "The tail is 

 brownish orange, tipped with soiled white, 

 with a subterminal band of blackish brown 

 there are also traces of thirteen other brown- 

 ish bars." 



( To be continued.) 



