86 
AMERICAN BUZZARD. 
The American Buzzard, or White-breasted Hawk, is twenty- 
two inches long, and four feet in extent; cere pale green; bill 
pale blue, black at the point; eye bright straw colour; eyebrow 
projecting greatly; head broad, flat and large; upper part of the 
head, sides of the neck and back, brown, streaked and seamed 
with white, and some pale rust; scapulars and wing-coverts 
spotted with white; wing quills much resembling the preceding 
species; tail-coverts white, handsomely barred with brown; tail 
slightly rounded, of a pale brown colour, varying in some to a 
sorrel, crossed by nine or ten bars of black, and tipt for half an 
inch with white; wings brown, barred with dusky; inner vanes 
nearly all white; chin, throat and breast, pure white, with the 
exception of some slight touches of brown that enclose the chin; 
femorals yellowish white, thinly marked with minute touches 
of rust; legs bright yellow, feathered half way down; belly 
broadly spotted with black or very deep brown; the tips of the 
wings reach to the middle of the tail. 
My reason for inclining to consider this a distinct species 
from the last, is that of having uniformly found the present two 
or three inches larger than the former, though this may possibly 
be owing to their greater age.* 
• Prince Musignano is of opinion that Wilson took his admeasurement of the 
borealis from males, and that of the leverianus from females; as he has always 
found the males in both states of plumage twenty inches, (a size which Wil- 
son gives as that of the borealis) and tlie females of both, twenty-two inches, 
(the size of the leverianus as given by Wilson.) 
