SHARP-SHINNED HAWK. 



117 



the purpose of seizing his prey by sudden surprise and main force 

 of flight. I kept this Hawk alive for several days, and was hope- 

 ful I might be able to cure him ; but he died of his w ound. 



On the fifteenth of September two young men whom I had 

 dispatched on a shooting expedition, met with this species on one 

 of the ranges of the Alleghany. It was driving around in the same 

 furious headlong manner, and had made a sweep at a red squirrel, 

 which eluded its grasp, and itself became the victim. These are 

 the only individuals of this bird I have been able to procure, and 

 fortunately they were male and female. 



The female of this species (represented in the plate) is thir- 

 teen inches long, and twenty-five inches in extent; the bill is black 

 towards the point on both mandibles, but light blue at its base; 

 cere a fine pea green ; sides of the mouth the same ; lores pale 

 whitish blue, beset with hairs; crown and whole upper parts very 

 dark brown, every feather narrowly skirted with a bright rust co- 

 lor; over the eye a stripe of yellowish white, streaked with deep 

 brown; primaries spotted on their inner vanes with black; secon- 

 daries crossed on both vanes with three bars of dusky, below the 

 coverts; inner vanes of both primaries and secondaries brownish 

 white ; all the scapulars marked with large round spots of white, 

 not seen unless the plumage be parted with the hand; tail long, 

 nearly even, crossed with four bars of black and as many of brown 

 ash, and tipt with white; throat and whole lower parts pale yel- 

 lowish white ; the former marked with fine long pointed spots of 

 dark brown, the latter with large oblong spots of reddish brown ; 

 femorals thickly marked with spade-formed spots, on a pale rufous 

 ground; legs long and feathered a little below the knee, of a green- 

 ish yellow color, most yellow at the joints; edges of the inside of 

 the shins, below the knee, projecting like the edge of a knife, hard 

 and sharp, as if intended to enable the bird to hold its prey with 

 more security between them; eye brilliant yellow, sunk below a 

 projecting cartilage. 



VOL. v. G g 



