86 



RED-SHOULDERED HAWK. 

 FALCO LINEATUS. 

 [Plate LHI.— Fig. 3.] 



Arct. Zool. p. 206, ^o, 102. — ^Lath. I, 56, JVo. 36.— Turt. Syst. p. 153.— -Peaie's Museum, JV'o. 205. 



f 



THIS species is more rarely met with than either of the for- 

 mer. Its haunts are in the neighbourhood of the sea. It preys 

 on Larksj Sandpipers and the small Ringed Plover, and frequently 

 on Ducks. It flies high and irregularly, and not in the sailing 

 manner of the Long-winged Hawks. I have occasionally observed 

 this bird near Egg Harbour in New Jersey; and once in the mea- 

 dows below this city. This Hawk was first transmitted to Great 

 Britain by Mr. Blackburne, from Long island in the state of New 

 York. Of its manner of building, eggs, &c. we are altogether un- 

 acquainted. 



The Red-shouldered Hawk is nineteen inches in length; the 

 head and back are brown, seamed and edged with rusty; bill blue 

 black ; cere and legs yellow ; greater wing-coverts and secondaries 

 pale olive brown, thickly spotted on both vanes with white and 

 pale rusty ; primaries very dark, nearly black, and barred or spot- 

 ted with white; tail rounded, reaching about an inch and a half 

 beyond the wings, black, crossed by five bands of white, and 

 broadly tipt with the same; whole breast and belly bright rusty, 

 speckled and spotted with transverse rows of white, the shafts 

 black; chin and cheeks pale brownish, streaked also with black; 

 iris reddish hazel; vent pale ochre, tipt with rusty; legs feathered 

 a little below the knees, long; these and the feet a fine yellow; 

 claws black ; femorals pale rusty, faintly barred with a darker tint. 



