82 
FALCO BOREALIS. 
given, that seemed particularly to belong to this species. 
As I have been promised specimens of this celebrated 
hawk next winter, a short time will enable me to deter- 
mine the matter more satisfactorily. Few gunners in 
that quarter are unacquainted with the duck hawk , as it 
often robs them of their wounded birds before they are 
able to reach them. 
20 . FALCO BOREALIS , WILSON. — RED-TAILED HAWK. 
WILSON, PLATE LII. FIG. I. ADULT. 
Birds naturally thinly dispersed over a vast extent 
of country; retiring during summer to the depth of the 
forests to breed ; approaching the habitations of man, 
like other thieves and plunderers, with shy and cautious 
jealousy; seldom permitting a near advance; subject to 
great changes of plumage; and, since the decline of 
falconry, seldom or never domesticated, — offer to those 
who wish eagerly to investigate their history, and to 
delineate their particular character and manners, great 
and insurmountable difficulties. Little more can be 
done in such cases than to identify the species, and 
trace it through the various quarters of the w r orld 
where it has been certainly met with. 
The red-tailed hawk is most frequently seen in the 
lower parts of Pennsylvania during the severity of 
winter. Among the extensive meadows that border 
the Schuylkill and Delaware, below Philadelphia, w here 
flocks of larks, ( alauda magma,) and where mice and 
moles are in great abundance, many individuals of this 
hawk spend the greater part of the winter. Others 
prowl around the plantations, looking out for vagrant 
chickens ; their method of seizing which is, by sweep- 
ing swiftly over the spot, and grappling them with their 
talons, and so bearing them aw r ay to the woods. The 
bird, from which the following description w as taken. 
