124 
BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
stroys hares, grouse, teal, and even the young of larger ducks, in the 
state in which they are known as ‘ flappers,’ besides capturing the usual 
variety of smaller birds and quadrupeds. It occasionally seizes upon 
reptiles or picks up insects. In securing its prey it gives chase openly 
and drives down its quarry with almost incredible velocity.” 
Thirty-four Cooper’s Hawks, which I have examined, sixteen showed 
the food taken to have been chickens ; ten revealed small birds — spar- 
rows, warblers and meadow larks — two, quail ; one, bull-frogs ; three, 
mice and insects ; two, hair and other remains of small quadrupeds. 
Accipiter atricapillus (Wils.). 
American Goshawk ; Blue Hawk. 
Description (^Plate 88). 
Length 24 inches; extent “about 46;” wing 14^; tail 11^; male smaller. 
Adult, — Al)ove dark lead color, black on top of head ; white stripe over eye, and 
more or less indistinct about occiput ; tail has four or five indistinct blackish bars ; 
ends of tail feathers whitish ; lower parts pale ashy white, with a faint leaden tint, 
sharply streaked with blackish and finely mottled or barred with white. The young 
dark brown above, feathers edged and spotted, with whitish and pale reddish-brown ; 
below yellowish-white and spotted with brown. 
Habitat. — Northern and eastern North America, breeding mostly north of the 
United States. South in winter to the middle States. Accidental in England. 
This fierce and predatory hawk is by no means as common as either 
of the two species previously mentioned. I have observed the Blue 
Hawk,” as it is called by hunters and lumbermen, only as a rare and 
irregular winter visitor in Pennsylvania. Audubon found the Goshawk 
breeding in the Great Pine swamp in this state. Fifteen or twenty 
years ago these hawks, it is said, were very frequently seen during all 
seasons in the counties of Cameron, Warren, Elk, Potter, W^yoming, 
Forest and McKean, where they then, it is stated, bred regularly. Mr. 
M. M. Larrabee, Emporium, Cameron county, says he always met with 
Goshawks about the nesting places of wild pigeons, but when the 
pigeons left his locality these hawks also departed, and are now seen 
there only as rare winter visitors. Mr. Otto Behr, Lopez, Sullivan 
county, in a letter dated February 28, 1890, kindly furnishes the follow- 
ing information showing that the species still breeds in Pennsylvania : 
‘‘ Where we live there is any amount of virgin forest ; altitude from 1,600 
to 2,500 feet. The Goshawk breeds regularly in this locality. We 
found the nests of two, at different times, both had one young ready to 
leave the nest, which was built in both cases in the crotch of a beech, 
and composed of rather large sticks, making a very bulky and coarse 
looking affair. We kept one of the hawks until late in the fall, when 
he broke loose and got away.” Prof. H. Justin Boddy, of Millersville^ 
writing to me in July, 1889, says: “1 spent two months, last July, in the 
pine forests of Centre county. I there saw A. atricapillus. I did not 
