90 
SHARP-SHINNED HAWK. 
On the fifteenth of September, two young men whom I had 
despatched on a shooting expedition, met with this species on 
one of the ranges of the Alleghany. It was driving around in 
the same furious headlong manner, and had made a sweep at 
a red squirrel, which eluded its grasp, and itself became the 
victim. These are the only individuals of this bird I have been 
able to procure, and fortunately they were male and female. 
The female of this species (represented in the plate) is thir- 
teen inches long, and twenty-five inches in extent; the bill is 
black towards the point on both mandibles, but light blue at its 
base; cere a fine pea green; sides of the mouth the same; lores 
pale whitish blue, beset with hairs; crown and whole upper 
parts very dark brown, every feather narrowly skirted with a 
bright rust colour; over the eye a stripe of yellowish white, 
streaked with deep brown; primaries spotted on their inner 
vanes with black; secondaries crossed on both vanes with three 
bars of dusky, below the coverts; inner vanes of both primaries 
and secondaries brownish white; all the scapulars marked with 
large round spots of white, not seen unless the plumage be part- 
ed with the hand; tail long, nearly even, crossed with four bars 
of black, and as many of brown ash, and tipt with white ; throat 
and whole lower parts pale yellowish white; the former marked 
with fine long pointed spots of dark brown, the latter with large 
oblong spots of reddish brown ; femorals thickly marked with 
spade-formed spots, on a pale rufous ground; legs long and 
feathered a little below the knee, of a greenish yellow colour, 
most yellow at the joints; edges of the inside of the shins, below 
the knee, projecting like the edge of a knife, hard and sharp, 
as if intended to enable the bird to hold its prey with more 
security between them; eye, sunk below a projecting cartilage, 
iris bright yellow. 
The male was nearly two inches shorter; the upper parts 
dark brown; the feathers skirted with pale reddish, the front 
also streaked with the same; cere greenish yellow; lores bluish; 
bill black, as in the female; streak over the eye lighter than in 
the former; chin white; breast the same, streaked with brown; 
