SHARP- SHINNED HAWK. 
211 
from one quarter of the heavens to the other, with prodigious 
velocity, inclining to the earth, swept suddenly down into a 
thicket, and instantly reappeared with a small bird in its 
talons. This feat I saw it twice perform, so that it was not 
merely an accidental manoeuvre. The rapidity and seeming 
violence of these zigzag excursions were really remarkable, 
and appeared to me to be for the purpose of seizing his prey 
by sudden surprise and main force of flight. I kept this 
Hawk alive for several days, and was hopeful I might be able 
to cure him ; but he died of his wound. 
On the 15th 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 
thirteen 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 parted with th£ 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 ; 
