HAWKS, EAGLES, KITES: SWAINSON HAWK 
167 
rope he swung to shelf after shelf and finally climbed up over the rim, 
with his prize carefully protected inside his shirt.” 
The adventure was little thought of at the time but the handsome 
Zone-tail afforded material for careful study, numerous sketches, and 
finally a beautifully prepared specimen. Among the sketches in Fuertes’ 
notebook were several giving overhead characters as the bird circled 
above him before it was shot, and the numerous color sketches of eyes, 
bill, cere, feet, and claws have since served as a basis for accurate illustra¬ 
tions of the species. 
An historic egg of this handsome Hawk is now in the egg collection 
of the National Museum where, to my great enjoyment, Major Bendire 
once showed it to me, recounting in his vivid way the adventure which 
he touches upon in his Life Histories. The egg was found in 1877 in 
Arizona, the nest being in a cottonwood five miles from the camp where 
the Major was stationed to watch hostile Apaches. On climbing the tree 
to secure the egg before collecting the old bird, he glanced down and dis¬ 
covered what he had not been able to see from the ground—“ several 
Apache Indians crouched down on the side of a little canyon,” with 
heads raised, watching him. Crowding the large egg quickly into his 
mouth as the safest way to carry it, he slid down the tree slowly enough 
to disarm the suspicions of the watching Indians, but on reaching his 
horse made good time till well out of range of their guns. On reaching 
camp, he promptly returned with a party of soldiers, but as he remarks 
naively, “what follows has no bearing upon my subject. I only mention 
the episode to account for not having secured one or more of the parents 
of these eggs.” He does state, however, that at the end of his five mile 
ride with the egg he found it “no easy matter to remove the egg” from 
his mouth, and he confesses that, when he finally succeeded, his “jaws 
ached for some time afterward” (1892, pp. 231-232). 
SWAINSON HAWK: Buteo swamsoni Bonaparte 
Plates 9 and 11 
Description. — Male: Length 19.5-20 inches, wing 14.4-16, tail 8-9, bill 
.8-9, tarsus 2.3-2.7. Female: Length 21-22 inches, wing 14.7-17.2, tail 9-10, 
bill .8-.9, tarsus 2.5-2.9. Wing with three quills cut out on inner web. Adult male 
in normal -plumage: Upperparts nearly uniform dark brown; tail crossed by about 
nine or ten narrow blackish bands; throat and belly white, sharply contrasting with 
reddish brown chest band. Adult female in normal plumage: Like male but chest 
patch grayish brown instead of rufous. Dark phase , both sexes: Sooty brown. 
Every possible gradation occurs between these dark and light phases. Iris brown, 
never yellow; cere, gape, legs and feet rich yellow. Young in juvenal plumage: 
Upperparts blackish brown varied with buffy or yellowish brown; head, neck, and 
underparts buffy or fawn color, head and neck streaked, and underparts usually 
more or less marked with blackish. 
Comparisons. —Seen from below, the black wrist marks and dark chest band 
of the normal adult male are distinctive. In the hand, in any plumage, the Swainson 
