75 



RED-TAILED HAWK. 

 FALCO BOEEALIS. 

 [Plate LII.— Fig. 1.] 



Arct. Zooh p. 205, JSTo* lOO.^American Bii%>%ard, Lath* I, 50.— *Turt. Syst. p. 151. — F. Aquilimis 

 Cauda ferrugaf Great Eagle Hawk, Bartram, p. 290.-— Peaie's Museum, JVb. 182. 



THE figure of this bird, and those of the other two Hawks 

 on the same plate, are reduced to exactly half the dimensions of 

 the living subjects. These representations are offered to the public 

 with a confidence in their fidelity; but these ^ I am sorry to say, are 

 almost all I have to give towards elucidating their history. Birds 

 naturally thinly dispersed over a vast extent of country, retiring 

 during summer to the depth of the forests to breed, approaching 

 the habitations of man, like other thieves and plunderers, with shy 

 and cautious jealousy, seldom permitting a near advance, subject 

 to great changes of plumage, and, since the decline of falconry, 

 seldom or never domesticated, offer to those who wish eagerly to 

 investigate their history, and to delineate their particular charac- 

 ter and manners, great and insurmountable difficulties. Little 

 more can be done in such cases than to identify the species, and 

 trace it through the various quarters of the world where it has 

 been certainly met with. 



The Red-tailed Hawk is most frequently seen in the lower 

 parts of Pennsylvania during the severity of winter. Among the 

 extensive meadows that border the Schuylkill and Delaware below 

 Philadelphia, where flocks of Larks, (Alauda magna) and where 

 mice and moles are in great abundance, many individuals of this 

 Hawk spend the greater part of the winter. Others prowl around 

 the plantations, looking out for vagrant chickens; their method of 



