268 COOPER'S HAWK. 
being confounded, even by the most superficial observer. 
Another good mark of discrimination may be found in the 
comparative length of the primaries ; the second in £. Cooperw 
being subequal to the sixth, while in Ff’. velox it is much shorter. 
The latter has also the fifth as long as the fourth; that, in our 
species, being equal to the third. The tail is also much more 
rounded, the outer feather being nearly an inch shorter than 
the middle one. In F” velox the tail is even, the outer feather 
being as long, or, if anything, longer than the middle. ‘There 
is no other North American species for which it can be mis- 
taken. 
The bird represented in the plate, of which we have seen 
seven or elght specimens perfectly similar in size and plumage, 
was a male, killed in the latter part of September, near Bor- 
dentown, New Jersey. The stomach contained the remains 
of a sparrow. Another that we procured was shot on the 12th 
of December, while in the act of devouring on the ground 
a full-grown ruffed grouse which he had killed, though a 
larger and heavier bird than himself. Mr Cooper, the friend 
to whom we have dedicated this species, has recently favoured 
us with an accurate description of a specimen of a somewhat 
larger size, shot in the early part of November on the eastern 
part of Long Island. 
The male Cooper’s hawk is eighteen inches in length, and 
nearly thirty in extent. The bill is black, or rather blackish 
brown; the cere, greenish yellow; the angles of the mouth, 
yellow. he irides are bright yellow. The general colour 
above is chocolate brown, the feathers being whitish grey at 
base ; on the head and neck above, they are blackish, margined 
with rufous, pure white towards the base, and greyish at the 
bottom, the white colour showing itself on the top and sides 
of the neck, and being much purer on the nucha. The back 
and rump are the same, but the feathers larger and lighter 
coloured, less margined with rufous, more widely greyish at 
base, and bearing each four regular spots of white in the 
middle of their length, which are not seen unless when the 
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