290 
GREAT-FOOTED HAWK. 
Low says that this species is found in all the head-lands, and 
other inaccessible rocks, of Orkney. “ It is the falcon, or moi e 
noble species of bawk, which was formerly so much coveted, and 
brought from Orkney. In the Burgh of Birsa I observed the dark- 
coloured kind, so beautifully engraved in the additional volume of 
the British Zoology. It is likewise found in Marwick-head, Hoy, 
Walls, Copinsha, and elsewhere in Orkney ; likewise in the Fair 
Isle and Foula ; as also in Lamhoga of Fetlor, Fitful, and Sum- 
burgh-Heads of Shetland. 
“ Never more than one pair of this species inhabit the same 
rock ; and when the young are fit, they are driven out to seek new 
habitations for themselves. The falcon’s nest, like the Eagle’s, is 
always in the very same spot, and continues so past memory of 
man.”* 
In the breeding season the Duck Hawk retires to the recesses 
of the gloomy cedar swamps, on the tall trees of which it con- 
structs its nest, and rears its young, secure from all molestation. 
In those wilds, which present obstacles almost insuperable to the 
foot of man, the screams of this bird, occasionally mingled with 
the hoarse tones of the Heron, and the hootings of the Great-horned 
Owl, echoing through the dreary solitude, arouse in the imagina- 
tion all the frightful imagery of desolation. Wilson and the writer 
of this article explored two of these swamps in the month of May, 
1813, in pursuit of the Great Heron, and the subject of this chap- 
ter ; and although they were successful in obtaining the former, 
yet the latter eluded their research. 
The Great-footed Hawk is twenty inches in length, and three 
feet eight inches in breadth ; the bill is inflated, short and strong, 
of a light blue colour, ending in black, the upper mandible with a 
tooth-like process, the lower with a corresponding notch, and trun- 
cate ; nostrils round, with a central point like the pistil of a flower ; 
* Low’s Natural History of the Quadrupeds, Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes, of Orkney and 
Shetland; published by William Elford Leach, M. D., 4to. 1813. 
