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represented here during the dry season. This may be accounted for 
from the tact that this extensive -region is diversified with rudely- 
■cultivated farms, old fields overgrown with brambles and weeds, impen¬ 
etrable thorny woods and forests of large trees, interspersed here and 
there with stagnant lagoons and lakes, through the center of which 
wind the clear waters of the Rio Mazatlan; there abounds animal life in 
great abundance; the old neglected fields, overgrown with matted 
vegetation, harbor innumerable field-mice and other rodents; here 
various species of lizards and snakes daft through the thickets when 
scared from their sunny beds. The lagoons furnish other reptiles; 
swarms of ducks and various kinds of water-fowl resort to their slimy 
waters; the woods are enlivened with great numbers of birds, all of 
which furnish to the different species of hawks their favorite prey. 
“ The remarkable species which heads this article I discovered in this 
locality; it is entirely new to me, and I have not yet seen it mentioned 
in any volume at my command; the specimen has been sent to the 
National Institution at Washington for identification. The flight of this 
bawk seems rather heavy, resembling somewhat the common fish-hawk, 
the wings appearing very broad and the tail remarkably short. Upon 
examining the contents of the stomach, after skinning it, I found only 
the remains of fish, one of which had been but freshly devoured ; it was 
a species of perch found in the lagoons and rivers of this region,”—[Col. 
A. J. Grayson, in Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 1874, p. 302. | 
