130 
BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
or boggy ground, watching for small quadrupeds and batrachians, which 
constitute its principal fare. 
Like other birds of this genus, the Red-shouldered Hawk nests in 
trees, usually in April and May in this locality. The eggs, two to four 
in number, are very similar to those of the Red-tail, but smaller. Young 
birds, which are known to many as Winter Falcons, are, according to 
my experience, much more frequently met with than full-plumaged 
adults. Nuttall remarks that this hawk lives principally on frogs, and 
probably insects and cray-fish in the winter. Gentry tells us that the 
food of the young consists of fragments of quadrupeds, besides an im¬ 
mense number of young grasshoppers and beetles. In my examinations 
of fifty-seven of these hawks which have been captured in Pennsylvania, 
forty-three showed field-mice, some few other small quadrupeds, grass¬ 
hoppers and insects, mostly beetles; nine revealed frogs and insects; 
two, small birds, remains of small mammals and a few beetles; two, 
snakes and portions of frogs. The gizzard of one bird contained a few 
hairs of a field-mouse and some long black hair which appeared very 
much like that of a skunk. The bird on dissection gave a very decided 
odor of skunk. In two of these hawks, shot in Florida, I found in one 
portions of a small catfish, and in the other remains of a small mammal 
and some few coleopterous insects (beetles). 
Buteo latissimus (Wils.). 
Broad-winged Hawk. 
Description (Plate 16, Fig. 1). 
Length of female about 17 ; extent about 36; tail about 7| inches. 
Adult .—Upper parts umber-brown, and many feathers edged with rusty or 
whitish; tail crossed by three black and two white bands, and narrow white tip, 
lower parts white or yellowish white, variously streaked and spotted with rusty. 
Young are duller, showy dark cheek patches; tail, grayish-brown, with whitish 
tips and crossed with five or six indistinct dusky bands; lower parts similar to 
adult but paler and spotted or streaked with black and dusky. 
Habitat .—Eastern North America, from New Brunswick and the Saskatchewan 
region to Texas and Mexico, and thence southward to Central America, northern 
South America, and the West Indies. 
Of the genus Buteo, in this section, the Broad-winged is the least 
abundant. It is a native and resident. The movements in the air of 
this hawk are easy and beautifully graceful. When in quest of food, its 
flight is in circles. At times, when circling, like the Sparrow Hawk, it 
will stand for an instant beating the air, and then descend with great 
velocity upon its prey, which it secures, not in its descent, but as it is 
on the rise. I have on more than one occasion witnessed this species 
