Identifier: keytonorthameric00coue (find matches)
Title: Key to North American birds. Containing a concise account of every species of living and fossil bird at present known from the continent north of the Mexican and United States boundary, inclusive of Greenland and lower California, with which are incorporated General ornithology: an outline of the structure and classification of birds; and Field ornithology, a manual of collecting, preparing, and preserving birds
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Coues, Elliott, 1842-1899
Subjects: Birds -- North America Birds -- Collection and preservation
Publisher: Boston, Estes and Lauriat
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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h, in which case the tail isusually barred several times with white. Our lighter-colored birds are not fairly separablefrom the normal European A. lagopus; but our birds average darker, and their frequent mel-anism does not appear to befall the European stock. But in any plumage the rough-leg isknown at a glance from any Buteo by the feathered shanks; while the peculiar coloration of 550 SYSTEM A TIC SYNOPSIS. — BAPTOBES — A CCIPITBES. A. ferrugineus is highly distinctive of the latter. Length of a 9> 22.00; extent 54.00; wing17.50; tail 9.00; iris light brown; bill mostly blackish-blue, cere pale greenish-yellow, feetdull yellow, claws blue-black. This is about an average size; the $ averages smaller ; wingabout 16.00, etc. The name adopted, it must be observed, is not intended to discriminate theblack from the ordinary plumage, but to separate the American bird subspecifically from theEuropean. N. Am., at large, common, especially in fertile, well-watered regions, as those of
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Fig. 382. — Rough-legged Buzzard, \ nat. size. (From Brehm.) the Atlantic seaboard; a large, heavy, and somewliat sluggish hawk, haunting meadows andmarshes, to some extent crepuscular in habits, of low, easy, and almost noiseless flight; prey-ing upmi insignificant quarry, particularly small rodent and insectivorous mammals, reptiles,batrachians and insects. Nest usually in large trees, but frequently on a ledge of rocks or theedge of a cut-bank ; a bulky mass of interlaced sticks, with softer matted material of miscel-laneous kinds ; eggs 3-5, laid late in May and in June, measuring 2.10-2 25 in length, by1.75-1.80 in breadth; varying in color from dingy whitish with scarcely any marking, or but FALCONIDJBJ — BUTEONINjE: BUZZARDS. 651 faint clt>uding, to creamy-whito boldly variegated with blotches and washes of dark brown onthe surface, with neutral-tint markings in the substance of the shell.52«. A. ferrugineus. (Lat. ferrugo, inm-rust.) Fkuruginous Rough-LEGGED Buzzard. C

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