187 



SPARROW-HAWK. 



F?^co Nisus. F. griseo-fuscus, suhtus albidus fusco undulatuSf 



Cauda nigra fasciata apice alba. 

 Grey-Brown Hawk^ beneath whitish undulated with brown^ 



tail barred with black, and white at the tip. 

 Falco Nisus. F, cera viridi, pedibus Jiavis, abdomine albo grisea 



undulato, cauda fasciis nigrkantibus. Lin. Syst. Nat. 

 Sparrow-Hawk. Will, orn, Finn. Brit. Zool. LatJu syn. 



This well-known species^ so remarkable for the 

 ravages it commits in the neighbourhood of dove- 

 houses, &c. is numbered by Falconers among the 

 short-winged Hawks, or such in which the wings 

 when closed fall short of the end of the tail. It is 

 a species in which the difference of size between 

 the male and female is more remarkable than in 

 most other Hawks ; the male usually measuring 

 about twelve inches, and the female fifteen. The 

 general colour is grey-brown above, varying in 

 depth or intensity in different individuals : the 

 quill-feathers are marked by blackish or dusky 

 bars, and the tail is crossed by four or five black- 

 ish bars: the under parts of the bird are white, 

 elegantly crossed or undulated by numerous linear 

 tlusky or blackish bars: the bill is dusky-blue, the 

 cere and legs yellow. In some birds the throat 

 and breast are marked by perpendicular rufous or 

 dusky streaks, while the abdomen is barred as 

 before described; and in some a cast of ferruginous 

 takes place on various parts of the plumage. " This, 

 says Mr. Pennant, is the most pernicious Hawk 



