332 
THE PURRE, 
along the sand, the Small Pigeon Hawk, constrained by 
necessity, ventures to make a sweep among the dead in 
presence of the proprietor, but as suddenly pays for his 
temerity with his life. Such a tyrant is man, when vested 
with power, and unrestrained by the dread of responsibility ! 
The Purre is eight inches in length, and fifteen inches in 
extent ; the bill is black, straight, or slightly bent downwards, 
about an inch and a half long, very thick at the base, and 
tapering to a slender blunt point at the extremity ; eye, very 
small ; iris, dark hazel ; cheeks, gray ; line over the eye, belly, 
and vent, white ; back and scapulars, of an ashy brown, marked 
here and there with spots of black, bordered with bright 
ferruginous ; sides of the rump, white ; tail-coverts, olive, 
centered with black ; chin, white ; neck below, gray ; breast 
and sides, thinly marked with pale spots of dusky, in some 
pure white ; wings, black, edged and tipt with white ; two 
middle tail-feathers, dusky, the rest, brown ash, edged with 
white ; legs and feet, black ; toes, bordered with a very narrow 
scalloped membrane. The usual broad band of white crossing 
the wing, forms a distinguishing characteristic of almost the 
whole genus. 
On examining more than a hundred of these birds, they 
varied considerably in the black and ferruginous spots on the 
back and scapulars ; some were altogether plain, while others 
were thickly marked, particularly on the scapulars, with a red 
rust colour, centred with black. The females were uniformly 
more plain than the males ; but many of the latter, probably 
young birds, were destitute of the ferruginous spots. On the 
24th of May, the eggs in the females were about the size of 
partridge shot. In what particular regions of the north these 
birds breed is altogether unknown. 
