180 NOTES ON THE 



scattered accidently by the parent in tearing it for them from 

 large snakes and frogs, or consisting of insects discovered by 

 the young birds themselves. The observation has proved a 

 valuable aid in searching for late nests. 



ACCIPITER VELOX (Wilson). (332.) 

 SHARP-SHINNED HAWK. 



This hawk is a familiar one in its migrations, being quite 

 common, and some of them remain during the winter. As soon 

 as the season for nidification arrives, to the casual observer 

 they seem to have left the country, but they retire to the un- 

 frequented sections, notably the borders of forests and thickets, 

 which no one less a "crank" than an industrious ornithologist, 

 would think of penetrating. I have secured a few nests, that 

 were all built in trees about fifteen to twenty feet from the 

 ground, and consisting of sticks and grass, lined with moss and 

 a few feathers. Some of them contained but two eggs, but as 

 one had five, I may reasonably suppose the former clutch was 

 incomplete. They build about the last week in April, having 

 arrived in the country about the first. The eggs are dingy- 

 whitish, irregularly splashed with different degrees of brown. 

 They begin to diminish in numbers about the middle of Sep- 

 tember, but, strange as the assertion may seem, it has been 

 impossible to say when they have all gone, for not a month 

 of the severest winters ever known in this high latitude has 

 failed to record its presence. For many years during my 

 earlier residence here, the practice of my profession took me 

 across the bleak prairies ver}'^ frequently in winter, on which 

 occasions I constantly saw flocks of Snow Buntings. At differ- 

 ent times their actions indicated the presence of a hawk, but 

 the idea of the possibility was not entertained until on one occa- 

 sion, when 1 was returning from one of those trips, with the 

 mercury at 43 below, as I afterwards learned, and with a wind 

 blowing furiously from but a few degrees west of north, I saw 

 one of this species coming before it with inconceivable velocity, 

 and oblivious of my presence, as I was in a sleigh, it sw^ept 

 close to the ground over the brow of a knoll close to me. and 

 seized a bunting out of a flock sitting so close that I had not 

 seen it. though directly in front of me. My astonishment was 

 boundless, but I had now the key to the actions of those flocks 

 I had so long observed. I was thoroughly familiar with the 

 Sharp shinned Hawk, having many times watched his peerless 

 accomplishments in hunting and seizing his prey, oftentimes 



