COOPER’S HAWK. 
371 
The bird represented in the plate, of which we have seen 
seven or eight specimens, perfectly similar in size and plu- 
mage, was a male, killed in the latter part of September, near 
Bordentown, New Jersey. The stomach contained the remains 
of a sparrow. Another that we procured, was shot on the 12th 
of December, while in the act of devouring on the ground a 
full-grown ruffed grouse which he had killed, though a larger 
and heavier bird than himself. Mr Cooper, the friend to whom 
we have dedicated this species, has recently favoured us with 
an accurate description of a specimen of a somewhat larger 
size, shot in the early part of November, on the eastern part 
of Long Island. 
The male Cooper’s hawk is eighteen inches in length, and 
nearly thirty in extent. The bill is black, or rather blackish 
brown ; the cere, greenish yellow ; the angles of the mouth, 
yellow. The irides are bright yellow. The general colour 
above is chocolate brown, the feathers being whitish grey at 
base; on the head, and neck above, they are blackish, margined 
with rufous, pure white towards the base, and greyish at the 
bottom, the white colour showing itself on the top and sides of 
the neck, and being much purer on the nucha. The back and 
rump are the same, but the feathers larger, and lighter coloured, 
less margined with rufous, more widely greyish at base, and 
bearing each four regular spots of white in the middle of their 
length, which are not seen unless when the feathers are turned 
aside. The whole body beneath is white, each feather, inclu- 
ding the lower wing-coverts and femorals, marked with a long, 
dusky medial stripe, broader and oblaneeolate on the breast 
and flanks, (some of the feathers of which have also a blackish 
band across the middle, ) the throat, and under wing-coverts ; 
the long feathers of the flanks (or long axillary feathers) are 
white, banded with blackish ; the vent and lower tail-coverts, 
pure white; the wings are nine inches long, and, when folded, 
hardly reach to the second bar of the tail from the base ; the 
smaller wing-coverts and scapulars, are like the back, the quills 
brown above, (lighter on the shaft,) and silvery grey beneath, 
