AMERICAN SPARROW HAWK. 
31 
even those well acquainted with both. In return for all tins abuse the 
hawk contents himself with, now and then, feasting on the plumpest of 
his persecutors ; who are therefore in perpetual dread of him ; and yet, 
through some strange infatuation, or from fear that if they lose sight of 
him he may attack them unawares, the Sparrow Hawk no sooner appears 
than the alarm is given, and the whole posse of Jays follow. 
The female of this species, which is here faithfully represented from 
a very beautiful living specimen, furnished by a particular friend, is 
eleven inches long, and twenty-three from tip to tip of the expanded 
wings. The cere and legs are yellow ; bill blue, tipped with black ; 
space round the eye greenish blue ; iris deep dusky ; head bluish ash ; 
crown rufous ; seven spots of black, on a white ground, surround the 
head in the manner represented in the figure ; whole ujiper parts reddish 
bay, transversely streaked with black ; primary and secondary quills 
black, spotted on their inner vanes with brownish white ; whole lower 
parts yellowish white, marked with longitudinal streaks of brown, except 
the chin, vent and femoral feathers, which are white ; claws black. 
FALCO SPARVERIUS. 
AMERICAN SPARROW HAWK. 
[Plate XXXII. Fig, 2— Male.] 
lAttle Hmclc, Arct. Zool. 2\\ , No. 110. — Emerillon de Cai/enne, Bvff. i., 291,pl. enl. 
No. 444.— L.^TH. I., 110.* 
As the male and the female of this species differ considerably in the 
markings of their plumage, the male is introduced, drawn to one-half its 
natural size, to conform with the rest of the figures on the plate. 
The male Sparrow Hawk measures about ten inches in length, and 
twenty-one in extent ; the whole upper parts of the head are of a fine 
slate blue, the shafts of the plumage being black, the crown excepted, 
which is marked with a spot of bright rufous ; the slate tapers to a point 
on each side of the neck ; seven black spots surround the head, as in the 
female, on a reddish white ground, which also borders each sloping side 
of tlic blue ; front, lores, line over and under the eye, chin and throat, 
white ; femoral and vent feathers yellowish white ; the rest of the lower 
* We add the followinn; synonymes -.—Falco sparverhis. Linn. Si/st. ed. 10, p. 90. 
— Gmel. Si/.'it. I., p. 284.— /(id. Oni. p 42 — jP. Dominir.ensis, Gmel. Syst. i., p. 285. 
— Little Hawk, C.\tesbt, i., p. b.—L' Emerillon de la Caroline, Briss.Oj-w. i., p. 386. 
Emerillon de St. Domingue, Id. p. 389. — Tinnunculus sparverius, Vibil. Ois. de 
I'Am. Sept. p. 12-13, 
