COOPER'S HAWK. 269 
feathers are turned aside. The whole body beneath is white, 
each feather, including the lower wing-coverts and femorals, 
marked with a long, dusky medial stripe, broader and oblan- 
ceolate on the breast.and flanks (some of the feathers of which 
have also a blackish band across the middle), the throat, and 
under wing-coverts; the long feathers of the flanks (or long 
axillary feathers) are white, banded with blackish ; the vent 
and lower tail-coverts, pure white; the wings are nine inches 
long, and, when folded, hardly reach to the second bar of the 
tail from the base; the smaller wing-coverts and scapulars 
are like the back, the quills brown above (lighter on the 
shaft), and silvery grey beneath, regularly crossed by blackish 
bands, less conspicuous above; the space between the bands 
is white on the inner vanes at base; some of the secondaries 
and tertials are tipt and edged with rusty, and have more 
and more of white as they approach the body, so that those 
nearest may in fact be described as white banded with blackish. 
The first primary is very short, more so than the secondaries ; 
the second is equal to the sixth, the third to the fifth, these 
two last mentioned being hardly shorter than the fourth, which, 
as in all Astures, is longest. The tail is full eight inches long, 
reaching five beyond the wings ; its colour is ashy brown, much 
paler. beneath, tipped with whitish, and crossed by four equi- 
distant blackish bands, nearly one inch in breadth; the tail- 
coverts at their very base are whitish; the lateral feathers are 
lighter, and with some white on the inner webs. The legs 
and feet are yellow, slender, and elongated, but still do not 
reach, when extended, to the tip of the tail; the tarsus, 
feathered in front for a short space, is two and three-quarter 
inches long; as in other Astures, the middle toe is much the 
longest, and the inner, without the nail, is shorter than the 
outer, but taken with its much longer nail, is longer. The 
talons are black, and extremely sharp, the inner and the hind 
ones subequal, and much the largest, while the outer is the 
most delicate. 
The female is larger, and measures two inches more in 
