64 
FALCO PALUMBARIUS. 
pf Philadelphia, and is now preserved, in good order, 
in Mr Peale’s museum. 
Its general make and aspect denotes great strength 
and spirit; its legs are strong, and its claws of more 
than proportionate size. Should any other specimen 
or variety of this hawk, differing from the present, 
occur during the publication of this work, it will enable 
me more accurately to designate the species. 
The black-cap hawk is twenty-one inches in length ; 
the bill and cere are blue ; eye, reddish amber; crown, 
black, bordered on each side by a line of white finely 
speckled with black ; these lines of white meet on the 
hind head; whole upper parts, slate, tinged with brown, 
slightest on the quills ; legs, feathered half way down, 
and, with the feet, of a yellow colour; whole lower 
parts and femorals, white, most elegantly speckled with 
fine transverse pencilled zig-zag lines of dusky, all the 
shafts being a long black line ; vent, pure white. 
If this be not the celebrated goshawk , formerly so 
much esteemed in falconry, it is very closely allied to 
it. I have never myself seen a specimen of that bird 
in Europe ; and the descriptions of their best naturalists 
vary considerably ; but, from a careful examination of 
the figure and account of the goshawk, given by the 
ingenious Mr Bewick, (Brit. Birds , vol. i. p. G5,) I 
have very little doubt that the present w ill be found to 
be the same. 
The goshawk inhabits France and Germany; is not 
very common in South Britain, but more frequent in 
the northern parts of the island, and is found in Russia 
and Siberia. Buffon, who reared two young birds of 
this kind, a male and female, observes, that “ the gos- 
hawk, before it has shed its feathers, that is, in its first 
year, is marked on the breast and belly with longitu-- 
dinal brown spots ; but, after it has had two moultings, 
they disappear, and their place is occupied by trans- 
verse waving bars, Avhicli continue during the rest of 
its life.” He also takes notice, that though the male 
w r as much shialler than the female, it was fiercer and 
more vicious. 
