GKEY GOSHAWK. 
Adult female. Uniform ash-grey above including the head, hind-neck, sides of neck, 
entire back, scapulars and wings ; tail crossed by eleven dark bands, the feathers 
being somewhat brown at the tips ; quills slightly darker than the back, being 
white on the basal portion of the inner webs which are crossed by dark bars ; 
throat and entire under-surface mottled and barred with grey ; thighs, lower 
abdomen, under tail-coverts and under wing-coverts pure white ; axillaries 
white, narrowly barred with grey. Bill black, cere yellow ; iris bright chestnut- 
red ; tarsi and feet dark yellow. Total length 560 mm. ; culmen 33, wing 286, 
tail 225, tarsus 81. Figured. Collected at Atherton, near Cairns, North 
Queensland, in September, 1908. 
Adult male. Uniform pale ash-grey above ; quills slightly darker than the back, the 
inner webs* almost pure white ; tail uniform with faint dark barrings on some of 
the feathers ; under-surface, including axiUaries, pure white with only a little very 
pale grey barring on the chest. Total length 425 mm. ; culmen 29, wing 261, 
tail 200, tarsus 68. Collected at Cooktown, North Queensland, on the 13th of May, 
1900, and wrongly sexed a female, and is the type of A. c. coohtowni. 
The birds from South Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria are slightly 
larger, lighter and with the markings on the breast not so pronounced as those 
from Northern Australia. 
A female from the Richmond River, New South Wales, measures : wing 311 mm., 
tarsus 84. A male from Kangaroo VaUey, New South Wales, measures : wing 
264 mm., tarsus 71. Collected June, 1891. 
Nestling stages probably as given by Gould below. 
Immature. “ Young birds are pale ashy-brown above, the white bases of the feathers 
showing here and there, but particularly on the lower portion of the hind-neck, 
where some of the feathers are entirely white, with the exception of one or two 
V-shaped pale ashy-brown cross-bars ; wings and tail-feathers pale brown with a 
slight greyish wash, the latter having brownish-white tips, with eight or more 
distinct dark brown cross-bars ; crown of the head dull grey-brown : aU the 
under-surface dull white, with broad shaped ashy-brown crossbars on the breast. 
From this stage of plumage on to maturity the upper-parts become greyer and 
the dark brown cross-bars are almost entirely obsolete : the last sign of immaturity 
is usually exhibited in the broader and darker ashy -brown bars on the breast.” 
' (North.) 
Nest. Placed high up in a tree ; a bulky platform of sticks and lined with leaves. 
Eggs. Clutch two ; bluish-white (faintly noticeable), sometimes with a few markings of 
brown. Axis 52-53 mm., diameter 38-41. 
Breeding-season. August to December. V 
The complicated history of this bird and the next will be treated under 
the latter. Here I wiU only deal with the names proper to this species 
alone. 
In 1827 it was described by Vigors and Horsfield under the name 
Astur mii, and when Gould recognised it in his Handbook (1865) he called 
it Leucospiza mii. 
In the “Birds of Australia” (1848) Gould did not separate these two, 
this and the next species, but referred to both under the name Astur 
novcehollandice. 
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