138 
Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
face thickly crossed with bars of ashy-brown, less distinct on 
the thighs; under tail-coverts white ; cere yellow; bill bluish 
horn-colour; ins orange. Total length, 19-5 inches; culmen, 
I 5; wing, i2'2; tail, 9-0; tarsus, 3'o. 
Adult Female. — Similar to the male, but a little larger in size 
and rather darker grey. Total length, 23 inches ; wing, 14-0 ; 
tarsus, 3-4. j 01 ‘t j 
Young Birds.— Much browner than the adults, mottled with 
white, the bases of the scapulars and wing-coverts being white 
and all the feathers margined with ochraceous-bufif; head and 
neck rufous-ochre, the nape inclining to whitish ; the crown 
broadly streaked with dark brown, the hind-neck lar<rely 
marked with spade-shaped spots of the same colour; forehead 
eyebrows, and sides of face whitish, narrowly streaked with 
dark brown ; under surface of body ochraceous-buff, inclining 
to white on the throat and under tail-coverts, the entire under 
surface streaked with dark brown, narrowly on the throat 
thighs, and under tail-coverts, more broadly on the chest and 
breast, the flanks marked with large spade-shaped spots ; tail 
dark brown, tipped with white, and crossed with five distinct 
bands of darker brown, the lighter interspaces inclining to 
white on either margin of the feathers ; feet yellowish-brown, 
the claws black ; cere and bill as in adults ; iris yellow. 
Sometimes the young birds are rusty-red on the under sur- 
Eauge in Great Britain.— Many years ago the Gos-Hawk is 
said to have bred in the British Islands, but has long since 
ceased to do so. Speaking of the bird in Scotland, and the 
evidence of its breeding there. Professor Newton says : “It is 
not unreasonable to suppose that, in the days when large 
forests of Scotch firs flourished naturally in that kingdom it 
inhabited the districts so opeupied ; still there can be no 
doubt that considerable confusion has arisen from the fact 
that m several places its common name has been, and yet is 
applied to the 1 eregrine Falcon, and hence some caution must 
be used in accepting all the testimony as to its former abund- 
ance m this country.’’ Most of the records of the Gos-Hawk 
in the British Islands refer to young birds in autumn and 
Winter, at which seasons the species is a tolerably regular mi- 
