IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
191 
THE OCCURRENCE OF MELANISM IN THE BROAD WINGED HAWK. 
(Buteo latissimus.) 
BY B. H. BAILEY. 
During the fall of 1907 Mr. James Ward of Britt, Iowa, sent to the Coe 
College Museum a hawk of the Genus Buteo, that, because of it's color, was 
difficult to identify. It was so similar to a specimen seen by the writer in the 
collection of mounted birds at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, that 
at the suggestion of Mr. W. E. C. Todd of the Carnegie Museum at Pittsburg, 
it was sent to Mr. Robert Ridgway of the National Museum at Washington, 
where both these gentlemen affirmed that it is a Broad Winged Hawk in 
melanistic plumage. 
This is the second melanistic Broad Winged Hawk that has been described. 
The description of the one in the Smithsonian collection, written by Mr. 
Robert Ridgway, appeared in Vol. IX, Proceedings of the U. S. National 
Museum, pp. 248-249. 
Our specimen was hurriedly prepared and owing to shot wounds it was 
impossible to determine the sex of the bird. The color of the iris was not 
noted. The stomach contained the fragments of a frog partially digested, 
and the foreleg of a frog was found in the crop. 
Description: Melanistic Buteo latissimus (Wils). Sex (?) Fall 1907, Eagle 
Lake (Hancock Lake), Hancock county, Iowa. Collector, Mr. James Ward, Coe 
College Museum. Head, neck, body and tibial flags, sooty brown with a slightly 
rufous cast due to very faint rufous edgings on the feathers. Back, and top 
of the head, somewhat darker. The feathers of the upper surfaces of the 
wings slightly worn and somewhat lighter at their margins. Concealed bases 
of feathers of the head, snow white; elsewhere bases of the feathers grayish 
white. Each feather shows a distinct black shaft. Under tail coverts when 
disturbed show three or four alternating light and dark bands. 
In this speciman, as in the one described by Mr. Ridgway, there is a slightly 
chalky cast to the plumage when viewed in strong daylight, which I attribute 
to the effect of the underlying grayish white bases of the feathers. 
Wings: Three outer primaries deeply emarginate on the inner webs. Lining 
of wings in general the same color as the body, except at the bases of the first 
three or four primaries of each wing, where there are a very few whitish 
feathers, each crossed by about four dusky bands. 
Exposed parts of the primaries dusky above with no evident banding; be- 
low, however, they are whitish on the inner webs, and crossed by five narrow 
dark bars. The tips of the primaries from below for an inch and a half appear 
almost black. Spreading the secondaries they show from above, on their inner 
webs, sharp contrasting bars of white and dusky, which appear much less 
distinct on the under surface. 
