The familiar rifle and Bible are there, just like in the famous mural that adorns a wall at the Kansas Statehouse.

But the yellow beak and feet and blue tail give it away — the John Brown Hawk is a bird of a different feather.

The latest addition to the Jayhawks on Parade, by a team of artists led by Jim Brothers, was hoisted atop the Lawrence Journal-World building at Sixth and Massachusetts streets Tuesday afternoon.

The work emulates the John Steuart Curry mural of wild-eyed abolitionist John Brown.

“I’ve always adored that Curry painting over there,” Brothers said. “It’s such a moving painting, and it’s so well known.”

The John Brown Hawk was the 26th fiberglass Kansas University mascot to be placed around Lawrence. Four more are scheduled to be finished in the next few weeks. They’ll be in place through Nov. 22, the date of the final KU home football game of 2003.

Cesar DuBois, who works with Brothers, came up with the John Brown idea. They also considered turning the Jayhawk into tavern-chopping prohibitionist Carry Nation.

“We wanted something to reflect historic Lawrence,” Brothers said. “Most of the people painting weren’t looking at the history. We couldn’t think of anything better to do.”

Brothers picked up the original fiberglass Jayhawk and reconfigured the shape to look more like Curry’s mural of Brown.

The end result left the beak, feet and tail intact. The rest is a different bird.

The Hawk emulates the John Brown mural, down to the Alpha and Omega letters on the Bible in the bird’s left hand, the rifle in the right hand, the dagger on the left hip and the revolver on the right hip.

Curry’s Statehouse mural, one of several painted between 1937 and 1942, was symbolic of the Bleeding Kansas struggle leading to the Civil War.

Though Curry considered it his masterpiece, some legislators hated the work, saying it emphasized two “freaks” of Kansas — Brown and a tornado, which was in the background. They passed a resolution requiring Curry to stop painting, and Curry never finished the remainder of the rotunda murals he was scheduled to complete. In protest, he refused to sign the murals.

The 150-pound John Brown Hawk took Brothers and his crew more than two months to complete.

“It’s fantastic,” said Ralph Gage, general manager of The World Company, which owns the Journal-World. “Jim Brothers and his crew did a wonderful job. It was hard to envision what it would look like up there. As it turned out, I’m sure it’s the best of all the Jayhawks.”

Susan Henderson, marketing manager with the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau, said her office received many compliments about all the Jayhawks in the past few weeks.

“We’re getting a lot of reaction,” she said. “It’s been overwhelming. We’re attracting people from not only the city of Lawrence, but outside the city as well. From our point of view, that was one of the goals.”

She mentioned only one major vandalism incident — the “Peace, Love and Daisy Hill Forever” Jayhawk in front of Douglas County Bank, 300 W. Ninth St., had its sunglasses taken over the weekend.

“It’s disappointing when something like that happens,” she said. “We’ve been fairly lucky.”

However, it appeared late Tuesday that the sole ear on the “Gogh Hawks Gogh” hawk on the 1000 block of Massachusetts Street had been taken off.

The John Brown Hawk was placed atop the roof, in part, to avoid such vandalism. As he prepared to help hoist the bird, DuBois said he was glad to see the finished product.

“I think it’s wonderful,” he said. “All the hard work paid off.”