Plate CCCLII. Male and Female.
Ash-grey above; head, tail, and lower parts white, with a large
bluish-black patch on the wing above, and a smaller beneath; feet
orange-yellow. Young with the upper parts brownish-grey, the larger
feathers tipped with white, the patches on the wings brownish-black.
_Male_, 14, 40. _Female_, 16-3/4, 41-1/2.
From Texas to North Carolina. Rare. Never far inland. Migrates
southward.
Black-winged Hawk, Falco melanopterus, Bonap. Amer. Orn. v.
ii.
Falco melanopterus, Bonap. Syn. p. 31. Falco dispar, App. p.
435.
Black-shouldered Hawk, Falco dispar, Aud. Amer. Orn. v. iv. p.
397.
GENUS VII. ICTINIA, Vieillot. ICTINIA.
Bill very short, wide at the base, much compressed toward the end;
upper mandible with the dorsal line decurved in its whole length, the
sides slightly convex, the tip narrow and acute, the edges with an
obtuse lobe; lower mandible with the angle very wide, the dorsal line
ascending and convex, the tip rather broad and obliquely truncate.
Nostrils round, lateral, with a central papilla. Head rather large,
roundish, broad, flattened; neck short, body compact. Legs rather
short; tarsus stout, covered anteriorly with scutella; toes scutellate
above, scabrous beneath, with pointed papillæ; claws rather long,
curved, acuminate, flattened beneath. Plumage rather compact. Wings
very long, the third quill longest. Tail long, emarginate.
This genus is easily distinguished from Elanus; the tarsi and toes
being scutellate in this, and scaly in that; and the festoon on the
upper mandible is much more prominent in Ictinia, while the nostrils,
instead of being elliptical, are round, as in the Falcons.