BLACK HAWK. 
287 
BLACK HAWK-FALCO SANCTI JOHANNIS? 
Plate LIII. Fig. 1. 
Lath. Ind. Orn. p. 34, No. 74. — Chocolate-coloured Falcon, Penn. Arct. Zool. 
No. 94. 
BUTEO SANCTI JOHANNIS?— Bonaparte. 
Falco (sub-genus Buteo ) Sancti Johannis, Bonap. Synop. p. 32. 
This, and the other two figures on the same plate, are 
reduced from the large drawings, which were taken of the 
exact size of nature, to one half their dimensions. I regret 
the necessity which obliges me to contract the figures of these 
birds, by which much of the grandeur of the originals is lost ; 
particular attention, however, has been paid in the reduction, 
to the accurate representation of all their parts. 
This is a remarkably shy and wary bird, found most fre- 
quently along the marshy shores of our large rivers ; feeds on 
mice, frogs, and moles ; sails much, and sometimes at a great 
height ; has been seen to kill a duck on wing ; sits by the side 
of the marshes on a stake for an hour at a time, in an almost 
perpendicular position, as if dozing ; flies with great ease, and 
occasionally with great swiftness, seldom flapping the wings ; 
seems particularly fond of river shores, swamps, and marshes ; 
is most numerous with us in winter, and but rarely seen in 
summer ; is remarkable for the great size of its eye, length of 
its wings, and shortness of its toes. The breadth of its head 
is likewise uncommon. 
The Black Hawk is twenty-one inches long, and four feet 
two inches in extent ; bill, bluish black ; cere, and sides of the 
mouth, orange yellow ; feet, the same ; eye, very large ; iris, 
bright hazel ; cartilage overhanging the eye, prominent, of a 
dull greenish colour ; general colour above, brown black, 
slightly dashed with dirty white ; nape of the neck, pure white 
under the surface ; front, white ; whole lower parts, black, 
with slight tinges of brown ; and a few circular touches of the 
same on the femorals ; legs, feathered to the toes, and black, 
