Cooper's Hawk 
219 
COOPER’S HAWK 
Called also: Chicken Hawk; Big Blue Darter 
Here is no ally of the farmer, but his foe, the 
most bold of all his robbers, a blood-thirsty 
villain that lives by plundering poultry yards, 
and tearing the warm flesh from the breasts of 
game and song birds, one of the few members of 
his generally useful tribe that deserves the 
punishment ignorantly meted out to his inno- 
cent relatives. Unhappily, it is perhaps the 
most common hawk in the greater part of the 
United States, and therefore does more harm 
than all the others. It is mentioned in this 
chapter that concerns the farmers’ allies, only 
because every child should know foe from friend. 
The female Cooper’s hawk is about nineteen 
inches long and her mate a flnger-length smaller, 
but not nearly so small as the little blue darter, 
the sharp-shinned hawk, only about a foot in 
length, but which it very closely resembles in 
plumage and villainy. Both species have 
slaty-gray upper parts with deep bars across 
their wings and ashy-gray tails The latter 
differ in outline, however. Cooper’s hawk having 
a rounded tail with whitish tip, and the sharp- 
shinned hawk a square tail. In maturity 
Cooper’s hawk wears a blackish crown. Both 
species have white throats with dark streaks 
