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Wilson, Alexander, 1766-1813. / American ornithology; or The natural history of the birds of the United States
(1828)

Falco lineatus. Red-shouldered hawk,   pp. [109]-110


Page [109]


F P'LCO LINES TUS. *
              RED-SHOULDERED HAWK.
                   [Plate LIII.-Fig. 3.]
Jrct. Zool. p. 206, .)o. 102.-LATH. I, 56, Vo. 36.-TURT. Siyt,
             P. 15S.-PEALE'S Museun, XJoV. 205.
  THis Hawk is more rarely met with than either of those in
the same plate. Its haunts are in the neighbourhood of the sea.
It preys on Larks, Sandpipers, and the small Ringed Plover,
and frequently on Ducks. It flies high and irregularly, and
not in the sailing manner of the Long-winged Hawks. I
have occasionally observed this bird near Egg-Harbour, in
New Jersey; and once in the meadows below this city. This
Hawk was first transmitted to Great Britain by Mr. Black-
burne, from Long Island, in the state of New York. Of its
manner of building, eggs, &c. we are altogether unacquainted.
  The Red-shouldered Hawk is nineteen inches in length; the
head and back are brown, seamed and edged with rusty; bill
blue black; cere and legs yellow; greater wing-coverts and se-
condaries pale olive brown, thickly spotted on both vanes with
white and pale rusty; primaries very dark, nearly black, and
barred or spotted with white; tail rounded, reaching about an
inch and a half beyond the wings, black, crossed by five bands
of white, and broadly tipt with the same; whole breast and bel-
ly bright rusty, speckled and spotted with transverse rows of
white, the shafts black; chin and cheeks pale brownish, streak-
ed also with black; iris reddish hazel; vent pale ochre, tipt with
rusty; legs feathered a little below the knees, long; these and
the feet a fine yellow; claws black; femorals pale rusty, faintly
barred with a darker tint.
* This is stated by Prince Musignano to be the young male of the preceding
species.


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