MARSH HAWK 245 



taking a few strokes, then gliding forward on spread wings, 

 or wheeling motionless. 



Its long tail and short, roxLiided tvings, and the alter- 

 nation of iving-stroke and periods of gliding, mark it as 

 either a Sharp-shinned Hawk, or a near relative, the Coop- 

 er's Hawk, and distinguish it from the other small hawk, the 

 Sparrow Hawk. When pursuing its prey, however, it does 

 not stop to glide, but flies with rapid wing-strokes, dashing 

 into a thicket where the frightened birds have taken refuge. 

 It is then to be distinguished from the Sparrow Hawk by 

 the entire absence of reddish-brown on the back. When it 

 perches, it chooses a limb more or less in shadow ; its tail 

 extends some distance beyond its folded wings, and is crossed 

 with several blackish bars. There is no way of surely tell- 

 ing a large female Sharp-shinned Hawk from a small male 

 Cooper's Hawk ; the male of the smaller species and the 

 female of the larger may, however, always be told by their 

 size. When the nest is approached, the parents utter a 

 cry suggesting " a Hairy Woodpecker's long call " (F. H. 

 Allen). (See Frontispiece.) 



Marsh Hawk. Circus hudsojiius 

 $ 19.00. 9 22.00 



Ad. $ . — Upper parts light bluish-gray ; tail crossed by black 

 bars ; upper tail-coverts (over the base of the tail) pure white j 

 throat and breast gray ; belly white, flecked here and there with 

 brown ; under surface of the wings white ; wings tipped with 

 black. Ad. 9- — Upper parts brown; '^rump^' ivhite ; lower 

 parts buffy-whitish ; breast thickly streaked with brown. Im. — 

 Upper parts similar to 9 j lower parts rich rusty, streaked with 

 brown on the breast, paler and unstreaked on the belly. 



Nest, on the ground, in wet meadows. Eggs, white or bluish- 

 white, often spotted with pale brown. 



The Marsh Hawk is a summer resident throughout New 

 England and New York, It winters sparingly in southern 

 New England and the lower Hudson Valley. It arrives in 



