. A history of British birds. Birds. 144 BRITISH BIRDS. green, approachiDg white, and in very rare instances show decided spots of dirty blood-red. Wolley mentions eggs marked with pale olive ; but none of these have ever come under my notice. The clay-coloured blotches mentioned by Dresser are not uncommon, and appear to be stains. In size they vary from 2-45 to 2'1 inch in length, and from 1-85 to 16 inch in breadth. Unspotted eggs of the Common Buzzard often resemble the eggs of the Goshawk so closely as to be undistinguishable from them. The Goshawk was one of the falconer's favourites, an
. A history of British birds. Birds. 144 BRITISH BIRDS. green, approachiDg white, and in very rare instances show decided spots of dirty blood-red. Wolley mentions eggs marked with pale olive ; but none of these have ever come under my notice. The clay-coloured blotches mentioned by Dresser are not uncommon, and appear to be stains. In size they vary from 2-45 to 2'1 inch in length, and from 1-85 to 16 inch in breadth. Unspotted eggs of the Common Buzzard often resemble the eggs of the Goshawk so closely as to be undistinguishable from them. The Goshawk was one of the falconer's favourites, and was flown at Hares, Rabbits, Pheasants, Partridges, Rock-Doves, Teal, and Crows. It does not, however, appear to have been a bird of long flight, and would soon give up its quarry if not successful, and perch on some tree or bush to await a new one. The general colour of the Goshawk^s upper parts is dark greyish brown, the tail with four bars of darker brown; eye-stripe, lores, and nape dull greyish white; rest of the underparts nearly white, spotted and barred with dull black, except on the under tail-coverts; cheeks dark brown. Legs and toes yellow, claws black; beak bluish horn-colour ; cere yellow; irides orange. The female resembles the male, but is larger and browner. The young bird has the upper parts brown, the underparts buflBsh white, closely marked with drop-shaped spots of reddish brown; cere and legs greenish yellow ; irides Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Seebohm, Henry, 1832-1895. London, Pub. for the author by R. H. Porter [etc. ]
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1883
