86 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



another nine, and nothing else." Among other mammals taken are 

 young rabbits, young skunks, pocket gophers, rats, spermophiles, 

 squirrels, shrews, and moles. The long list of birds includes bittern, 

 green heron, teal and other ducks, coot, rails, grouse, quail, part- 

 ridges, pheasants, plovers, sandpipers, woodcock, snipe, sparrow 

 hawk, screech owl, flicker, doves, starling, meadowlark, blackbirds, 

 grackles, numerous sparrows, cardinal, towhees, warblers, wrens, 

 mockingbird, catbird, thrashers, robin, bluebird, and thrushes. Frogs 

 form a large item; and small snakes and lizards are eaten. It also 

 feeds on large numbers of grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, and other 

 insects. Ivan R. Tomkins tells me that in the salt-water marshes of 

 South Carolina and Georgia "its winter food is mostly marsh rabbits 

 {Sylvilagus palustris) .'''' At times it is quite destructive to poultry 

 and game. E. S. Cameron (1907) writes: "This bird is the common 

 'Henhawk' of eastern Montana and is the most pertinacious of any 

 in attacks on the poultry yard. Young marsh hawlcs weighing about 

 ten ounces will endeavor to disable a chicken weighing a pound, by 

 pecking it on the head and striking on the back at the same time with 

 the feet, their strong wings enabling them to keep directly above 

 it no matter where the prey may run. Birds of the year, through 

 inexperience, are the most daring, and my wife has taken a scream- 

 ing pullet from the claws of one of them which found the prize 

 too heavy to lift." 



Henry K. Coale (1925) reported that a marsh hawk killed 7 of a 

 flock of 14 Hungarian partridges within two weeks, before it was 

 caught in a trap. "It would tear the back open and rip the flesh 

 and skin off in strips." 



The well-known habit of quartering the ground over fields or 

 marshes, barely high enough to clear the tallest vegetation, is the 

 common method employed to hunt its principal prey, small mammals 

 and small birds. Its keen eyes are quick to detect its quarry, and its 

 flight is under such perfect control that it can stop suddenly and 

 drop quickly down upon the victim. Usually it is devoured right 

 there on the ground, but often it is carried to some convenient stump 

 or post, or carried away to feed its mate or young. A mouse or 

 small bird may be almost wholly eaten, but a larger animal or bird 

 will be skinned or plucked and the flesh torn off. When the victim 

 is too large to be eaten at one meal, the hawk may return later to 

 finish the feast. Dead game or even carrion is often welcome. 

 A. G. Lawrence writes to me : "E. Robinson informs me that he has 

 seen marsh hawks hovering in front of a prairie fire, picking up the 

 mice as they fled before the flames. I have seen a marsh hawk 

 hover for more than 5 minutes over a bush in which a small bird had 

 taken refuge, darting rapidly from side to side when the bird ven- 



