GREAT FOOTED HAWK. 
55 
lion. Mr Wilson, and the writer of this article, 
explored two of these swamps, in the month of May, 
1813, in pursuit of the great heron and the subject of 
this chapter; and although they were successful in 
obtaining the former, yet the latter eluded their 
research. 
The great footed hawk is twenty inches in length, 
and three feet eight inches in extent ; the bill is inflated, 
short, and strong, of a light blue colour, ending in 
black, the upper mandible with a tooth-like process, 
the lower with a corresponding notch, and truncate ; 
nostrils round, with a central point like the pistil of a 
flower; the eye is large and dark, surrounded with a 
broad bare yellowish skin, the cartilage over it yellow 
and prominent ; frontlet whitish ; the head above, 
cheeks, running off like mustaches, and back, are black ; 
the wings and scapulars are brownish black, each 
feather edged with paler, the former long and pointed, 
reaching almost to the end of the tail ; the primaries 
and secondaries are marked transversely on the inner 
vanes with large oblong spots of ferruginous white, the 
exterior edge of the tip of the secondaries curiously 
scalloped, as if a piece had been cut out ; the tertials 
incline to ash colour ; the lining of the wings is beauti- 
fully barred with black and white, and tinged with 
ferruginous ; on a close examination, the scapulars and 
tertials are found to be barred with faint ash ; all the 
shafts are black ; the rump and tail coverts are light 
ash, marked with large dusky bars ; the tail is rounding, 
black, tipped with reddish white, and crossed with 
eight narrow bars of very faint ash ; the chin and 
breast, encircling the black mustaches, are of a pale 
buff colour ; breast below and lower parts reddish buff, 
or pale cinnamon, handsomely marked with roundish 
or heart shaped spots of black; sides broadly barred 
with black; the femorals are elegantly ornamented 
with herring-bones of black on a buff ground ; the vent 
is pale buff, marked as the femorals, though with less 
numerous spots ; the feet and legs are of a corn yellow, 
the latter short and stout, feathered a little below the 
r 
