108 
BIRDS OF PREY. 
and stakes in the rice-fields, remaining thus for half an 
hour at a time, and then darting after their prey as it 
comes in sight. I saw one descend upon a Plover, as 
I thought, and Wilson remarks their living on these 
birds, Larks, and Sandpipers. The same pair that I 
watched also hung on the rear of a flock of Cow-buntings 
which were feeding and scratching around them. It is 
possible that they sometimes attack squirrels, as I have 
been informed ; and Wilson charges them with preying 
also upon Ducks. 
I never observed them to soar, at least in winter, their 
$ 
time being passed very much in indolence, and in watch- 
ing their ignoble game. Their flight is almost as easy 
and noiseless as that of the owl. In the early part of 
the month of March they were breeding in West Flor- 
ida, and seemed to choose the densest thickets, and not 
to build at any great height from the ground. On ap- 
proaching these places, the kee-oo became very loud and 
angry. 
All the individuals I have seen in the southern states, some scores, 
agreed so nearly with Wilson’s and Pennant’s Red-shouldered 
Hawk, that I can scarcely avoid the conclusion, that this is the state 
of the adult plumage ; if, indeed, the Winter Hawk is at all identic 
with ours, the very different number of bars in the tail of the two 
birds is sufficiently remarkable. The male Red-shouldered spe- 
cies, according to Wilson, is 19 inches in length ; that of Pennant 
was 22 inches, having seven bands, however, on the tail ; this must 
have been a female, which differs from the other sex chiefly in 
the colors, which are less dark and pure. Bill blackish. Cere and legs 
yellow. The head and back are brownish and rusty. The greater 
wing-covers and secondaries pale olive-brown, thickly spotted with 
white and yellowish white. Primaries nearly black, barred with 
white. Tail black, rounded, extending about 1J inches beyond the 
wings, crossed by 5 bands of white, and broadly tipped with the 
same. Beneath bright rusty, with indistinct darker transverse bands 
(the disposition of which, being contrary to that of the spots of the 
Winter Hawk, are in the order usually occurring in old birds rather 
