THE NEW SPORT OF "HAWKING" 263 



Now we will drive a mile west and try a pine grove, where 

 a pair of Red-shoulders always nest. The Barred Owls that 

 used to breed here have gone, but the hawk proves constant. 

 There goes one of them from near the last year's nest. It 

 is an easy climb of thirty-five feet, plenty of limbs, a regular 

 step-ladder pine. Not an egg is yet laid ; this particular 

 pair is habitually later than the others that I know of. Some 

 of them are already incubating their sets, but in this case, 

 judging from past experience, the eggs will hardly be all 

 laid before the twenty-fifth. There will be three or four ; the 

 Red-shoulder is more prolific than the Red-tail. 



Last year another pair of Red-tails had young in a pine 

 swamp away out beyond Lakeville Precinct, and probably 

 have nested there again ; so we will drive out there over that 

 narrow road where for miles we see but one house. Here is 

 the pasture where we will leave the horse ; the nest is just 

 across the edge of this swamp on the border of a clearing. 

 Almost entirely blown down ! Then we must search the big 

 tract through, separating and working systematically in 

 parallel lines. It gets tiresome, but let us not give it up. 

 " There she goes," — did I hear a shout ? Yes, and the hawk 

 is sailing over my head, just above the trees, and, wheeling, 

 her tail, dull red above, flashes in the sun. You did well 

 to see that nest almost hidden from observation in that 

 unusually thick pine, again sixty feet from below. And 

 how much wilder she was than the other, to leave the nest 

 at the first rap ! There will not be three eggs this time, only 

 the usual two, but beautifully spotted. We are more than 

 satisfied as, under the lengthening shadows of the woods, the 

 horse fairly flies toward her bin of oats. 



In western New England in the hill country, the Red-tail's 

 favorite nesting-site is on some tall chestnut or oak growing 

 from the foot of a steep, rocky declivity a little way up from 



