116 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



evidently addled and buried in the lining of the nest, but the other 

 had disappeared. On June 30 they were about two-thirds grown and 

 partly feathered; one, probably the female, was considerably larger 

 than the other. I made my last visit on July 11, when one of the 

 3^oung had disappeared and the other was perched on a limb above 

 the nest. I climbed the tree with my camera, but before I got within 

 range, he climbed out to the end of the limb and then flew clumsily 

 over to the next tree ; he repeated the operation when I climbed the 

 next tree and I saw him fly from tree to tree with increasing con- 

 fidence, until I gave up the chase. His wings and tail were nearly 

 grown, but he was still partially downy; he was then about five 

 weeks old. I had noticed on previous visits that while there were 

 only eggs in the nest it was lined with the usual flakes of outer bark ; 

 but after the young had hatched it was relined with fresh green 

 sprigs of pine ; this lining, however, was not renewed after the young- 

 were half grown. 



My attempts to rear young Cooper's hawks in captivity have not 

 succeeded; they have always been wild and untamable. But Dr. 

 H. Justin Roddy (1888) has been more successful ; he writes of one he 

 took from a nest when not more than two weeks old : 



It was a great eater. When six weeks old it ate nine English Sparrows 

 {Passer domesticus) and a common mouse (Miis musouJus) in one day; and 

 ate on an average eight Sparrows a day from that time until it was ten weeks 

 old. * * * In eating the bird tore its food to pieces with the bill, nearly 

 always beginning at the entrails. It almost always seemed to relish the in- 

 testines more than any other part of the bird or animal, sometimes eating only 

 this part and leaving the rest. When the bird or animal was still warm and 

 the blood therefore uncoagulated, it tore it open and apparently bathed the 

 bill in the blood and the visceral juices. It apparently sucked up these fluids 

 in order to allay thirst. But I invariably found it refuse water, — in this 

 respect acting quite differently from the Cathartes aura, which drank water 

 freely. * * * 



The bird became very much attached to me, and even when it could fly 

 and was allowed its liberty did not leave, but returned every few hours for its 

 food, which I always liberally provided. How long it would have continued to 

 do this I do not know, as the experiment ended with its death. It was shot 

 by one who did not know it was my pet. 



William Brewster (1925) writes: 



While skirting the edge of a deep and heavily-wooded glen on the north 

 side of Upton Hill, half a mile or more from the Lake, I heard on August 4, 

 1874, a succession of shrill, squealing whistles repeated at frequent intervals. 

 Cautiously approaching the place whence these sounds came, I presently dis- 

 covered four young Cooper's Hawks not quite fully grown or feathered, and 

 still tufted here and there with fluffy, whitish down, standing close together in 

 a row on a prostrate log. Every now and then one would unfold and raise 

 its wings, flapping them to preserve its balance, as it took a few unsteady steps 

 along the log, at the same time uttering the whistling cries above mentioned. 

 One and all stood very erect when not in motion, and young as they were 



