8 COOPER’S HAWK. 
of twenty-four hours that he was left unobserved, killed three 
Falcons which were confined with him. 
The inextricable confusion reigning throughout the works of 
authors who have not attended to the characters of the different 
groups of this genus, renders it next to impossible to decide with 
any degree of certainty, whether our Falco cooperii has or has not 
been recorded. Though agreeing imperfectly with many, we have 
not been able, notwithstanding our most sedulous endeavours, to 
identify it with any. It is evidently a young bird, and we should 
not be surprised at its proving, when adult, a known species, 
perhaps one of the numerous species figured of late, and possibly 
Le Grand Epervier de Cayenne of Daudin, Sparvius major , Vieillot, 
stated to be one-third larger than the European Sparrowhawk. 
At all events, however, it is an acquisition to the ornithology of 
these states; and we have ventured to consider it as a new species, 
and to impose on it the name of a scientific friend, William 
Cooper, of New-York, to whose sound judgment, and liberality in 
communicating useful advice, the naturalists of this country will 
unite with us in bearing testimony; and to whom only the author, 
on the eve of his departure for Europe, would have been willing 
to entrust the ultimate revision and superintendence of this work. 
The perfect accuracy with which Mr. Lawson may be said to 
have outdone himself in the delineation of this bird, in all the 
details of its plumage, bill, and feet, will now at least have estab¬ 
lished the species in the most incontestible manner. 
Our bird agrees very well with the Falcon gentle, Falco gentilis, 
Linne, but as that species is referred to the young of the Gos¬ 
hawk, we have preferred giving it a new name to reviving one 
that might have created an erroneous supposition of identity. 
To the young Goshawk, our Hawk is, in fact, extremely similar 
in colour and markings, being chiefly distinguished from it by 
the characters of their respective sections, having the tarsi much 
