30 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



the duck the last time, I pulled trigger on him ; for we are 

 all eminently selfish, and when one of the lower animals, 

 as we regard them, interferes with us in our pleasures or 

 comforts, even if they are fulfilling the dictates of their 

 natures, we brush them from existence, as if zve were the 

 only rightful possessors of this beautiful world. Fortu- 

 nately for the hawk, unfortunately for the tlapper, and 

 much to my chagrin, the cap failed to explode, and the poor 

 duck was borne off for food for the family of the hawk. 



The Cooper's Hawk breeds in all the New-England States, 

 and is partial to no particular locality. I have found the 

 nest in sections not a mile from the seacoast ; in the deepest 

 woods of Northern Maine; and liave had tlie eggs sent me 

 from different localities in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and 

 New Hampshire. 



The nest of this species is more often found than that of 

 any other. In my collecting trips, my experience has been 

 that I have found certainly two nests of this to one of all 

 others. Audubon says, " The nest is usually placed in the 

 forks of the branch of an oak-tree, towards its extremity. 

 In its general appearance, it resembles that of the common 

 crow, for which I have several times mistaken it. It is com- 

 posed externally of numerous crooked sticks, and has a slight 

 lining of grasses and a few featliers." This does not agree 

 with my observation ; for, in great numbers of nests that I 

 have examined, in which I have found no great variation in 

 character, they were almost invariably in a fork of a tall 

 tree near the top, — in three cases out of five in the differ- 

 ent lihies. They were large, bulky affairs, constructed of 

 twigs and sticks, some of them nearly half an inch m 

 diameter : they were decidedly hollowed, and often lined 

 with leaves and the loose bark of the cedar. The eggs of 

 this species vary in number from two to four. I do not 

 remember ever having found more than four, wliich number 

 is usually laid. Their ground-color is a dirty bluish-white, 

 with often thinly scattered spots of brown, or obscure 



