MARSH HAWK 85 



Young males are quite dark above, "bister" to "mummy brown" ; the 

 under parts are largely white, with considerable drab and buffy 

 mottling, especially on the chest, which is heavily clouded with drab ; 

 the wings and tail are much like those of the adult. Young females 

 show similar progress toward maturity, but they still show many 

 rufous edgings above; they can be distinguished from first-year 

 females by their spotted breasts. At the next complete molt, the 

 following summer, the young become practically adult in plumage, 

 though probably males continue to grow whiter as they grow older. 

 Adults have their complete annual molt during July, August, and 

 September. 



Food. — The marsh hawk is regarded by many as a highly bene- 

 ficial species, mainly because of the large numbers of mice, rats, 

 and other injurious small mammals that it destroys. It certainly 

 is a great mouser; it lives largely on frogs and small snakes and de- 

 vours many injurious insects, but the records show that many small 

 birds and some larger ones are killed by it. Dr. A. K. Fisher (1893) 

 gives the following summary of its food : 



Of 124 stomachs examined, 7 coiituined poultry or game birds ; 34, other 

 birds ; 57, mice ; 22, other mammals ; 7, reptiles ; 2, frogs ; 14, insects ; 1 indeter- 

 minate matter, and 8 were empty. 



Although this hawk occasionally carries off poultry and game birds, its eco- 

 nomic value as a destroyer of mammal pests is so great that its slight irregu- 

 larities should be pardoned. Unfortunately, however, the farmer and sports- 

 man shoot it down at sight, regardless or ignorant of the fact that it preserves 

 an immense quantity of grain, thousands of fruit trees, and innumerable nests 

 of game birds by destroying the vermin which eat the grain, girdle the trees, 

 and devour the eggs and young of the birds. 



Maj. Allan Brooks (1928) condemns the marsh hawk, as "the most 

 destructive hawk in all America to our marsh loving waterfowl for 

 at least three months in the year." He accuses it of killing large 

 numbers of young ducks and says that it does not kill its victim out- 

 right "but slowly wears the wretched captive out and literally eats 

 it alive commencing at the breast muscles." He cites another case 

 where a family of marsh haAvks killed over two dozen old and young 

 blue and ruffed grouse during one nesting season. These cases are 

 probably exceptional, or extremely local in effect, for most of the 

 evidence is in favor of the marsh hawk. Herbert L. Stoddard (1931) 

 found remains of cotton rats, which destroy the eggs of quail, in 

 925 out of 1,100 pellets of this hawk. Several observers have men- 

 tioned the great service that marsh haw^ks perform in the southern 

 ricefields by driving away bobolinks and blackbirds more effectively 

 than hired men with guns, thus saving considerable expense. 



Meadow mice seem to constitute the bulk of the food, according 

 to nearly all observers. Judge John N. Clark wrote to Major 

 Bendire (1892) : "One I examined contained not less than eleven. 



