The Pigeon Hawk ranges very extensively over the United States, and extends its migrations far beyond their limits on either side. Mr. TOWNSEND found it on the Rocky Mountains, as well as along the shores of the Columbia river. Dr. RICHARDSON mentions it as not uncommon about York Factory, in latitude 57 degrees, and it is not improbable that it wanders farther, as he speaks of having seen a small Hawk on the north shore of Great Bear Lake, in latitude 66 degrees, which may have been a male as small as the one represented in my plate. I found it very abundant in the Texas early in May, when I shot as many as five on a small island in a short time.

Mr. HUTCHINS’s description of the eggs of this bird, which he says are white, and from two to four in number, as well as the situation of its nest, as given in his Notes on the Hudson’s Bay Birds, is greatly at variance with my own observations. The eggs in these instances, which occurred at Labrador, were five; they measured an inch and three-quarters in length, an inch and a quarter in breadth, and were rather elongated; their ground colour a dull yellowish-brown, thickly clouded with irregular blotches of dull dark reddish-brown. In that country they are laid about the first of June. In the beginning of July I found five in a nest that were ready to be hatched. The nests were placed on the top branches of the low firs peculiar to that country, about ten or twelve feet from the ground, and were composed of sticks, slightly lined with moss and a few feathers. At this season the old birds evinced great concern respecting their eggs or young, remaining about them, and shewing all the tokens of anger and vexation which other courageous species exhibit on similar occasions. The young are at first covered with yellowish down; but I had no opportunity of watching their progress, as all that were taken on board the Ripley died in a few days. This species also breeds in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.