104 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



pure sport of frightening them, as it fails to catch one when it might 

 easily do so. When attacked by crows or jays it sometimes retali- 

 ates and sends its tormenters away screaming, perhaps minus one of 

 their number. I once saw a sharp-shinned hawk chasing some small 

 sparrows in an open field, until some barn swallows came along 

 and began attacking the hawk; they drove him away, and, as he 

 mounted in the air, they followed and kept swooping down at him 

 from above; higher and higher he mounted, soaring at times like 

 a Buteo; they did not desert him until he was almost out of sight, 

 way up in the sky ; the hawk made no attempt to attack the swallows. 

 This high soaring flight is unusual, except during migrations, when 

 it is regularly practiced. Its usual method of })rocedure, when not 

 hunting, is to fly at a moderate height, with a series of steady, 

 quick flappings, followed by short periods of rapid sailing, the whole 

 process being swift and graceful. Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1920) 

 writes : "A pair soaring and playing together high in the air gave 

 me a beautiful exhibition. The smaller one, the male, would dart at 

 the larger one, the female, who would shake or tip the v.ings to spill 

 the air and fall down only to glide up again without movement of 

 the wings to a great height. Again they would dart down with great 

 speed, and turn and glide up again." 



Naturally this little villain is greatly dreaded by all the smaller 

 birds, and they have learned to keep out of sight and silent when 

 one of these hawks is near. By the larger birds it is not only feared 

 but is cordially hated and sometimes attacked. Many of the hawk's 

 apparent attacks on birds of its own size or larger are playful feints 

 for its own amusement; and sometimes the game is plaj^'ed on both 

 sides. M. P. Skinner (1928) tells an interesting story of a king- 

 fisher escaping from a sharp-shinned hawk by diving and swimming. 

 Mr. and Mrs. T. T. McCabe (1928a), who have seen many such 

 events, evidently think that the kingfisher enjoys the game, for they 

 say: "Not only is the pursuit and escape a matter of daily occur- 

 rence over the grassy, many-channelled creek which flows under our 

 windows, but it is hardly less common to see the Kingfishers ap- 

 proach and circle the seated Hawk. Once, when the latter refused 

 to be 'drawn,' the Kingfisher lit on a limb forty feet away and 

 fifty j^ards from water, and, vibrating with excitement and hatred, 

 rattled his loud defiance." 



Mr. Skinner says, in his notes, that he has seen sharp-shinned 

 hawks chased by a nutcracker, which was always careful to keep 

 above the hawk, by robins that came to the rallying cry of one of 

 them, and by tree swallows; the last seem to be immune from the 

 attacks of this hawk. He has seen the hawk scoop at gulls on a 

 garbage pile and seen one jjersecute a flying red-tailed hawk. A, G. 

 Lawrence says in his notes : 



