171 
FALCONS, HAWKS, EAGLES, ETC. 
pure white with few markings to deep cinnamon buff, more or less sprin¬ 
kled or blotched with darker brown. 
Food. — Mainly grasshoppers and crickets; also other insects, snails, 
small injurious mammals, and sometimes birds. 
The habits of the eastern sparrow hawk are the same as those of 
the western. 
360a. F. s. deserticola Mearns. Desert Sparrow Hawk. 
Similar to F. sparverius but larger, with relatively longer tail and paler, 
more rufous coloration. 
Distribution. — Western United States and British Columbia; south to 
Guatemala. 
Food. — Small mammals such as mice and gophers, with grasshoppers 
and other insects. 
The marsh hawk and the sparrow hawk are the two most familiar 
members of the hawk family. Instead of spending their time soaring 
high in the sky or darting back and forth through the treetops, 
Circus beats slowly low over our meadows for mice, while the spar¬ 
row hawk builds his nest in a knot-hole of a tree by the roadside 
and sits on a fence post when not hovering over the meadow looking 
for grasshoppers. His handsome, trim little person is familiar to 
passers by, while his shrill killy-killy-killy , given as he hovers, is one 
of the pleasant well-known sounds of the open country. 
In the mountains the sparrow hawks often affect the high places. 
On Mount Shasta they have been seen at about 13,000 feet. On Las¬ 
sen Peak, Mr. W. K. Fisher saw one in such hot pursuit of a Clarke 
crow that it took refuge in a clump of hemlocks. In the Wind 
River Mountains they have been seen hovering over large tracts of 
slide rock as if in search of conies and chipmunks. 
GENUS POLYBORUS. 
362. Polyborus cheriway (Jacq .). Audubon Caracara. 
Bill long, compressed, only slightly hooked; nostrils linear, oblique, 
slanting down toward cutting edge of bill; upper mandible scalloped on 
cutting edge; tarsus nearly twice as long as middle toe without claw, 
almost wholly naked. 
Adults. — Skin of face nearly bare ; horizontal crest and body blackish 
brown except for white collar and white on wings and tail, the white col¬ 
lar widening to a cape on back, grading from pure white through spotted 
and barred black and white to black ; wings with white shaft streaks and 
grayish white patch on quills; tail white, with broad black terminal band 
and about 13 or 14 narrow dusky bars. Young : black of adults replaced by 
brown, mixed black and white cape of adult dingy whitish, striped with 
dark brown. Length: 20.50-25.00, wing 14.60-16.50, tail 8.80-10.00, bill 
1.20-1.48. 
Distribution. — Resident along the southern border of the United States 
(Florida, Texas, and Arizona) and Lower California; extending south to 
South America, Ecuador, and Guiana. 
