SPECIES 3. FALCO COLUMBARIUS. 
PIGEON HAWK. 
[Plate XV. — Fig. 3. — Male.] 
Linn. Syst. ed. 10, p. 90, JVo. 19. — Lath. Syn. v. i, p. 101, JYo. 
86. — L’Epervier dela Caroline, Hriss. Orn.i,p.S78. — Catesb. 
I, p. 3, t. 3. — Bartram, p. 290. — Gmel. Syst. v. i, p. 281. — 
Peale’s Museum, JYo. 352. 
This small Hawk possesses great spirit and rapidity of flight. 
He is generally migratory in the middle and northern states, 
arriving in Pennsylvania early in spring, and extending his 
migrations as far north as Hudson’s Bay. After building and 
rearing his young, he retires to the south early in November. 
Small birds and mice are his principal food. When the Reed-* 
birds, Grakles, and Red-winged Blackbirds, congregate in large 
flights, he is often observed hovering in their rear, or on their 
flanks, picking up the weak, the wounded or stragglers; and 
frequently making a sudden and fatal sweep into the very midst 
of their multitudes. The flocks of robins and pigeons are honour- 
ed with the same attentions from this marauder; whose daily 
excursions are entirely regulated by the movements of the great 
body, on whose unfortunate members he fattens. The indivi- 
dual from which the drawing in the plate was taken, was shot 
in the meadows below Philadelphia, in the month of August. 
He was carrying off a blackbird ( Oriolus phceniceus) from the 
flock, and though mortally wounded and dying, held his prey 
fast till his last expiring breath; having struck his claws into its 
very heart. This was found to be a male. Sometimes when shot 
at, and not hurt, he will fly in circles over the sportsman’s head, 
shrieking out with great violence, as if highly irritated. He 
frequently flies low, skimming a little above the field. I have 
never seen his nest. 
