BIRDS OF PREY 141 



teen to fifteen inches at its largest diameter. In it are 

 laid four or five dull light-green eggs, either plain or 

 sparsely spotted with brown. Here the adults brood by 

 turns, the free one bringing food in its claws and drop- 

 ping it from the air to its mate on the nest below, as if 

 by accident ; for these handsome Haw^ks are wise and 

 very, very wary. I have seen them bring sticks for nest- 

 ing materials and drop them in the same way to the 

 other bird in the grass. You will rarely discover the 

 nest by seeing them alight near it. When the time for 

 a change of labor has come, one of the birds circles over 

 and over, without dropping food, and finally alights in a 

 tree, if there be one there. Before you know it another 

 Hawk, his counterpart except for size, is circling in his 

 place while he still sits in the tree. By and by he is 

 gone from the tree, but in most instances you have not 

 seen him go, you have been so intently watching the 

 gyrations of his mate in the air. 



In eighteen to twenty days the young Hawks break 

 their hard shells, one each daij, and cuddle down among 

 the feathers and straw of the crude nest. From the day 

 the first little ball of down appears, one or the other 

 of the adults may be seen constantly on the wing over that 

 meadow. The same tactics are pursued as before, for 

 the food is dropped to the parent on the nest, who, after 

 the first few days, holds it fast in her beak while the 

 nestlings tear off bits from it for themselves. In this 

 way the muscles of bill and neck arc developed. Later 

 on the food is simply dropped to them, both parents 

 being off on the hunt, and the little fellows grasp it in 



