98 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



John E. Thayer's notes, seven were in white pines, one 90 feet above 

 the ground, and one was in a hemlock, only 25 feet up. I have 

 a Massachusetts set in my collection taken from a nest in a beech. 

 W. J. Brown, who has examined over 200 nests of this hawk 

 in the vicinity of Montreal, has sent me some elaborate notes. He 

 says of its nesting habits: 



The majority of nests have been found in black spruce trees, a few in balsam, 

 and an occasional one in hemlock, cedar, tamarack, and pine. The height 

 varies from 10 to 60 feet from the ground against the trunk on horizontal 

 branches. The nest does not resemble the bulky structure of the crow, as 

 some authorities aver, but it is easily distinguishable from the latter by the 

 shallow platform of interlaced spruce twigs. The usual nest of this hawk 

 is an affair of twigs, sometimes lined with flakes of bark, and it cannot be 

 mistaken for that of a crow or any other species of hawk, but can be recognized 

 at a glance at any season of the year. A number of nests have been built 

 over old foundations, but as a general rule the bird builds a new nest each 

 season. The tree chosen is on the outskirts of the woods or at the edge of 

 any clearing or opening in the middle of the woods. A favorite location is in 

 a thick clump of spruce near a clearing or on the border of a path. Any 

 large area of coniferous timber usually contains a pair of shai-pshins. 



Mr. Brown once found a sharp-shinned hawk sitting on a set of 

 five eggs in an old blue jay's nest, 6 feet up in a hemlock sapling, 

 with its "long tail and a portion of its body showing conspicuously 

 over the edge of the nest." In the Thayer collection is a set from 

 a nest 25 feet up "in a crotch in a W'hite poplar", taken in Manitoba, 

 and also one from Utah, taken from a nest lined with grass, leaves, 

 and pine needles, only about 6 feet up in a "native birch, near a 

 creek, in the bottom of a canyon." I have a Utah set taken from 

 a Cottonwood, about 25 feet up. While collecting in the Huachuca 

 Mountains, Ariz., we found a typical nest, containing four eggs, 

 on May 28, 1922; it was built on horizontal branches against the 

 trunk of a fir, about 30 feet from the ground, in a clump of tall 

 thick firs, about halfway up the mountain (pi. 32). 



Audubon (1840) reports finding two very unusual nests; one was 

 "in a hole of the well-known 'Eock-in-Cave', on the Ohio River"; 

 the other was in "the hollow prong of a broken branch of a syca- 

 more." John Krider (1879) says he has "found its nest built on 

 high rocks in the mountains of Pennsylvania." John Macoun 

 (1909) mentions a nest in Saskatchewan "in the crotch of a willow, 

 less than 10 feet from the ground" in a willow thicket. A nest 

 found by P. M. Silloway (1903) in a Montana thicket was "in a 

 crotch of a haw tree", only 9 feet from the ground. Charles F. 

 Morrison (1887), in Colorado, took a set of three eggs on June 

 22, 1886, "deposited in a dilapidated magpie's nest, the arched roof 

 of which had fallen upon the main nest, forming a hollow which 

 had been lined with a few feathers upon some dead leaves which 



