9 
cooper’s hawk. 
>ts adult state as Falco Pennsylvanicus, and in its youth 
as Falco velox, was established on the sparrow hawk of 
Europe, Falco nisus, but the American species just 
mentioned are no less typical. The hawks of this 
section are more elegantly shaped, being much more 
slender; their wings are still shorter than in the other 
section, reaching little beyond the origin of the tail, 
and their tarsi slender and elongated, with a smooth 
and almost, continuous covering. 
Notwithstanding their smaller size and diminished 
strength, their superior courage and audacity, and the 
quickness of their movements, enable them to turn the 
night of the largest birds, and even sometimes, when 
J n captivity together, to overcome them. We have 
>ept a sparrow hawk, ( Falco nisus,) which, in the space 
W twenty-four hours that he was left unobserved, killed 
ih't'e falcons which were confined with him. 
the inextricable confusion reigning throughout the 
'''"‘'ks of authors who have not attended to the 
laraeters of the different groups of this genus, renders 
1 next to impossible to decide, with any degree of 
certainty, whether our Falco Cooperii has or has not 
eeu recorded. Though agreeing imperfectly with 
mnny, we have not been able, notwithstanding our most 
sedulous endeavours, to identify it with any. It is 
evidently a young bird, and we should not be surprised 
a ’ ts (moving, when adult, a known species, perhaps 
n 6 •!] r numer °ns species figured of late, and 
JK>sm i y Le Grand Epervier de Cayenne of Daudin, 
bparvius major, Vi c iU„t, stated to he onc-third larger 
man the European sparrow hawk. At all events, 
uowever, it is an acquisition to the ornithology of these 
a . > au " we have ventured to consider it as a new 
peeies, and to impose on it the name of a scientific 
JMend, William Cooper of New York, to whose sound 
' , gmeut, and liberality iu communicating useful advice, 
naturalists of this country will unite with us iu 
earing testimony, and to whom only the author, on 
10 eve of his departure for Europe, would have been 
