Mr. Robert Ridgway has met with this Hawk as far to the north as Southern Illinois. It was seen and twice shot at on the 19th of August, 1871, on Fox Prairie, in Richland County. Mr. Ridgway came across it while hunting Swallow-tail and Mississippi Kites. The bird, while being annoyed by these Hawks, was well seen, and there cannot be the slightest doubt as to its identity.
Mr. Robert Owen found this Hawk, known in Guatemala by the local name of Gavilan, a common name for the whole race of birds of prey, breeding at San Geronimo, April 3, 1860. The nests are usually found in the high trees which are scattered over the plain, and not unfrequently within a few yards of the Indian ranchos. Two eggs seemed to be the complement laid by one bird. These eggs are described by Mr. Owen as all white, without any natural coloring. The inner coating of the shell is sea-green, seeming to confirm the apparently close connection between the genera of Astur and Asturina.
Mr. G. C. Taylor met what he presumed to be this Hawk in great abundance at Comayagua, Honduras, in January. He saw a pair making their nest on the top of a lofty cotton-tree.
Captain Bendire found this species not uncommon and breeding in the vicinity of Tucson, in Arizona. He found two nests, one of which was taken June 6, the other a few days later. They were very slightly built of sticks and strips of bark, and placed in low trees on the banks of Reledo Creek. The nest contained two eggs. These are of a rounded oval shape, are quite tapering at one end and rounded at the other. They are of a uniform bluish-white color and unspotted, and measure 2.00 inches in length by 1.60 inches in breadth.
Genus ANTENOR, Ridgway.
- Antenor, Ridgway. (Type, Falco harrisi, Aud.)
- Craxirex, Authors, not of Gould.[85]
42559, ♀. ¼
42559, ♀. ½