AMERICAN SPARRO W HA WK. 



53 



reddish white ground, which also borders each sloping side of 

 the blue ; front, lores, line over and under the eye, chin, and 

 throat, white ; femoral and vent-feathers, yellowish white ; 

 the rest of the lower parts, of the same tint, each feather 

 being streaked down- the centre with a long black drop ; 

 those on the breast, slender, on the sides, larger; upper part 

 of the back and scapulars, deep reddish bay, marked with ten 

 or twelve transverse waves of black ; whole wing-coverts and 

 ends of the secondaries, bright slate, spotted with black ; 

 primaries, and upper half of the secondaries, black, tipt with 

 white, and spotted on their inner vanes with the same ; lower 

 part of the back, the rump, and tail-coverts, plain bright bay ; 

 tail rounded, the two exterior feathers, white, their inner 

 vanes beautifully spotted with black ; the next, bright bay, 

 with a broad band of black near its end, and tipt for half an 

 inch with yellowish white; part of its lower exterior edge, 

 white, spotted with black, and its opposite interior edge, 

 touched with white ; the whole of the others are very deep 

 red bay, with a single broad band of black near the end, and 

 tipt with yellowish white ; cere and legs, yellow ; orbits, the 

 same ; bill, light blue ; iris of the eye, dark, almost black ; 

 claws, blue black. 



The character of this corresponds with that of the female, 

 given at large in Yol. I. p. 262. I have reason, however, to 

 believe, that these birds vary considerably in the colour and 

 markings of their plumage during the first and second years ; 

 having met with specimens every way corresponding with the 

 above, except in the breast, which was a plain rufous white, 

 without spots ; the markings on the tail also differing a little in 

 different specimens. These I uniformly found, on dissection, 

 to be males ; from the stomach of one of which I took a con- 

 siderable part of the carcass of a robin (Turdus migratorius), in- 

 cluding the unbroken feet and claws; though the robin actually 

 measures within half an inch as long as the sparrow hawk." 



* Bonaparte has separated the small American falcons from the larger 

 kinds, characterising the group as having the wings shorter than the tail, 



