SHARP-SHINNED HA WK. 2 1 1 



paler, streaked with dusky ; round the breast, some small 

 streaks of blackish ; wing, black, the greater coverts and next 

 superior row, broadly tipt with white, forming two broad 

 bars across the wing ; primaries edged with olive, tertials 

 with white ; tail-coverts, black, tipt with olive ; tail, slightly 

 forked, black, and edged with olive ; the three exterior 

 feathers altogether white on their inner vanes ; legs and feet, 

 dirty yellow ; eye, dark hazel ; a few bristles at the mouth ; 

 bill, not notched. 



This was a male. Of the female I can at present give no 

 account. 



SHAKP-SHINNED HAWK. (Falco velox.) 



PLATE XLV.— Fig. 1. 



ACCIPITEB PENNSYLVAJSriCUS.—SwAmsox.—YoxJXG Female. 

 Autour a bee sineuse, Temin. PI. Col. 67. 



This is a bold and daring species, hitherto unknown to natu- 

 ralists. The only hawk we have which approaches near it 

 in colour is the pigeon hawk, already figured in this work, 

 Plate XV. ; but there are such striking differences in the 

 present, not only in colour, but in other respects, as to point 

 out decisively its claims to rank as a distinct species. Its long 

 and slender legs and toes — its red fiery eye, feathered to the 

 eyelids — its triangular grooved nostril, and length of tail, — 

 are all different from the pigeon hawk, whose legs are short, 

 its eyes dark hazel, surrounded with a broad bare yellow skin, 

 and its nostrils small and circular, centered with a slender 

 point that rises in it like the pistil of a flower. There is no 

 hawk mentioned by Mr Pennant, either as inhabiting Europe 

 or America, agreeing with this. I may, therefore, with con- 

 fidence, pronounce it a nondescript, and have chosen a very sin- 

 gular peculiarity which it possesses for its specific appellation. 

 This hawk was shot on the banks of the Schuylkill, near 

 Mr Bartram's. Its singularity of flight surprised me long 

 before I succeeded in procuring it. It seemed to throw itself 



