80 



ASH-COLORED, OR BLACK-CAP HAWK. 

 FALCO ATRICAPILLUS. 

 [Plate LH— Fig. 3.] 



Peale's Museum, JVo. 406. 



OF this beautiful species I can find no precise description. 

 The Ash-colored Buzzard of Edwards differs so much from this^ 

 particularly in wanting the fine zig-zag lines below, and the black 

 cap, that I cannot for a moment suppose them to be the same. 

 The individual from which the drawing was made is faithfully re- 

 presented in the plate, reduced to one half its natural dimensions. 

 This bird was shot within a few miles of Philadelphia, and is now 

 preserved, in good order, in Mr. Peale^s museum. 



Its general make and aspect denotes great strength and spirit; 

 its legs are strong, and its claws of more than proportionate size. 

 Should any other specimen or variety of this Hawk, differing from 

 the present, occur during the publication of this work, it will enable 

 me more accurately to designate the species. 



The Black-cap Hawk is twenty-one inches in length ; the bill 

 and cere are blue ; eye reddish amber ; crown black, bordered on 

 each side by a line of white finely specked with black ; these lines 

 of white meet on the hind head; whole upper parts slate, tinged 

 with brown, slightest on the quills; legs feathered half way down, 

 and, with the feet, of a yellow color ; whole lower parts and femo- 

 rals white, most elegantly speckled with fine transverse pencilled 

 zig-zag lines of dusky, all the shafts being a long black line; vent 

 pure white. 



If this be not the celebrated Goshawk^ formerly so much es- 

 teemed in falconry, it is very closely allied to it. I have never 



