Krider's Hawk 175 



nesting in hills (Gale) ; EI Paso co., March, May, October (Aiken coll.) ; 

 Wet Mountains to 10,000 feet (Lowe) ; Mesa co., breeding to 9,000 

 feet (Rockwell) ; San Juan co., breeding (Drew) ; Fort Lewis, breeding 

 (Morrison). 



Habits. — The Red-tail, often called the Hen-Hawk, 

 suffers a good deal of unjust persecution, on account 

 perhaps of its name, for it is undoubtedly of considerable 

 service to the farmer. Though it may occasionally 

 take a chicken, the great bulk of its prey consists of 

 mice and other small mammals : out of 562 stomachs 

 examined by Fisher, 409 contained traces of these. 

 It also destroys a good many snakes as well as large 

 numbers of grasshoppers, especially in the fall, and the 

 good it does undoubtedly far exceeds the harm. 



In the plains and lower valleys the Red-tail builds 

 in tall cotton-woods ; at higher elevations, in spruces, 

 on sandstone ridges in the chffs (see Plate 4), or in scrub- 

 oak eight to ten feet up. Morrison, Dille, Rockwell and 

 Gale all give accounts of the nesting habits. 



Gale found a nest near Gold Hill, May 27th, 1884 ; 

 it was placed in the crotch of an upper Umb of a cotton- 

 wood, about thirty- five feet above the ground, and 

 was a bulky structure, built of twigs and lined with a 

 httle dry grass and a few green sprays of the cotton- 

 wood. It contained three nearly fresh eggs — the usual 

 number. These were greenish chalky-white, varyingly 

 but scantily marked with brown ; they average 1"3 x 1*8. 

 The parents made no effort to defend their nest, but 

 quietly withdrew. 



Krider's Hawk. Buteo horealis krideri. 



A.O.U. CheokUst no 337a — Colorado Records — Dille 87, p. 99 ; Cooke 

 97, p. 74. 



Description. — Closely resembUng B. b. calurus but lighter-coloured, 

 with a great deal of white on the upjDor side, especially on the upper 

 tail-coverts and head ; tail pale rufous, usually without the black 



