} 
COOPER’S HAWK. 9 
more slender and elongated, and the wings still shorter; the tail 
is also considerably more rounded. 
But it is to the sharp-shinned Hawk (Falco velox) of Wilson, 
the Falco pensylvanicus, or Falco fuscus in its immature plumage, 
that our Cooper’s Hawk bears the most striking resemblance, 
and is in every particular most closely allied. Even comparing 
feather by feather, and spot by spot, they almost perfectly agree; 
but the much larger size of the present, it being more than twice 
the bulk, will always prevent their being confounded even by the 
most superficial observer. Another good mark of discrimination 
may be found in the comparative length of the primaries; the 
second in F. cooperii being subequal to the sixth, while in F. velox 
it is much shorter. The latter has also the fifth as long as the 
fourth; that, in our species, being equal to the third. The tail is 
also much more rounded, the outer feather being nearly an inch 
shorter than the middle one. In F. velox the tail is even, the 
outer feather being as long, or if any thing, longer than the 
middle. There is no other North American species for which it 
can be mistaken. 
The bird represented in the plate, of which we have seen seven 
or eight specimens perfectly similar in size and plumage, was a 
male, killed in the latter part of September, near Bordentown, 
New-Jersey. The stomach contained the remains of a Sparrow. 
Another that we procured, was shot on the twelfth of December, 
while in the act of devouring on the ground, a full-grown Ruffed 
Grous which he had killed, though a larger and heavier bird than 
himself. Mr. Cooper, the friend to whom we have dedicated this 
species, has recently favoured us with an accurate description of 
a specimen of a somewhat larger size, shot in the early part of 
November, on the eastern part of Long Island. 
The Male Cooper’s Hawk is eighteen inches in length, and 
nearly thirty in extent. The bill is black, or rather blackish- 
VOL. II.—c 
I 
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