90 
STRIX HUDSONIA. 
breast, belly, and vent, pale rust, sliafted with brown ; 
femorals, long’, tapering 1 , and of the same pale rust tint ; 
leg’s, feathered near an inch below the knee. This was 
a female. The male differs chiefly in being rather 
lighter, and somewhat less. 
This hawk is particularly serviceable to the rice fields 
of the southern states, by the havoc it makes among 
the clouds of rice buntings that spread such devastation 
among that grain, in its early stage. As it sails low, 
and swiftly, over the surface of the field, it keeps the 
flocks in perpetual fluctuation, and greatly interrupts 
their depredations. The planters consider one marsh 
hawk to be equal to several negroes for alarming the 
rice -birds. Formerly the marsh hawk used to be 
numerous along the Schuylkill and Delaware, during 
the time the reeds were ripening, and the reed-birds 
abundant ; but they have of late years become less 
numerous here. 
Mr Pennant considers the “ strong , thick , and short 
legs ” of this species, as specific distinctions from the 
ring-tailed hawk ; the legs, however, are long and 
slender ; and a marsh hawk such as he has described, 
with strong, thick, and short legs, is no where to be 
found in the United States. 
GENUS III.— STRIX, Linn^us. 
SUBGENUS I. — SURNIA, DUMERIL. 
25 . STRIX HUDSONIA , WILSON. — HAWK OWL. 
WILSON, PLATE L. FIG. VI EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEUM. 
This is an inhabitant of both continents, a kind of 
equivocal species, or rather a connecting link between 
the hawk and owl tribes, resembling the latter in the feet, 
and in the radiating feathers round the eye and bill ; but 
