114 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



sometimes nest as low as 10 feet from the ground, and I have here 

 found some of their nests fairly well lined with the dry inner bark 

 of the Cottonwood and with weed stalks; while in the vicinity of 

 Grand Forks, North Dakota, according to information furnished 

 me by Mr, G. G. Cantwell, they are said to nest occasionally directly 

 on the ground." 



He quotes from Denis Gale, regarding a peculiar Colorado nest, as 

 follows : "On June 25 I found a nest of a Cooper's hawk containing 

 four unmarked bluish white eggs, resting upon some thin flakes or 

 scales of spruce bark, which alone constituted the lining of the nest, 

 the available contrivance for which was a large bunch of matted 

 scrub, an excrescence upon a horizontal limb, about 18 inches from 

 the trunk and about 20 feet from the ground. This bunch consisted 

 of a wonderful growth of very densely interlaced twigs, the surface 

 of which offered a commodious nesting site, having not only an ample 

 flat area, but a sufficient depression in its center to meet every 

 requirement for a nest." 



In Arizona we found several nests of Cooper's hawks generally 

 high up in the tops of the giant cottonwoods or sycamores in the 

 mountain canyons; only one was climbed to, as it was only 40 feet 

 up in a blackjack oak. In Texas these hawks nest in the lofty tops of 

 the heavily timbered deciduous forests in the river bottoms. 



John H. Flanagan (1901), in Khode Island, robbed a red-shoul- 

 dered hawk's nest on April 20 and found a Cooper's hawk's nest 

 within 20 feet of it ; 10 days later he took the eggs of the latter also ; 

 and on May 12 he was surprised to see the Cooper's hawk fl}'- from 

 the redshoulder's nest, in which it had already laid three eggs. A 

 climb to the nest showed that every vestige of the inner bark (which 

 the redshoulder always uses) had been removed. A few small sticks 

 had been added and the nest relined with outer bark. 



Clarence F. Stone (1899) had an unusual opportunity to watch 

 a pair of Cooper's hawks building their nest, which he describes as 

 follows : 



I spied the half completed nest just as one of the hawks left it and thought 

 I had been discovered, but an instant later the mate lit upon the nest and 

 arranged a stick. 



Their manner of approaching the nest was a very interesting and curious 

 sight. They came through the low woods flying just above the ground three 

 or four feet, with the speed of an arrow, and when within fifteen or twenty 

 feet of the nest-tree they closed their wings with a quick flip and "slid up" to 

 the nest in a graceful curve. 



They did not visit the nest together and apparently the one that was away 

 from the nest could see its mate, for no sooner would one of them drop a few 

 feet below and fly away, than the other was on the upward curve. As if to 

 avoid collision they left the nest from the north side and approached from 

 the west, in which direction — and only a few rods away — all the material 

 seemed to be obtained. 



