MARSH HAWK 81 



found ou di'y ground, above all tide levels, constructed of weed stalks and 

 grasses, nicely lined, was only an inch or two thick. A nest located on the 

 marsh over a mile inland from, the shore of Newark Bay, but more or less 

 exposed to floods and unusual tides, was similarly constructed, but was about 

 5 or 6 inches thick. A third nest, found nearer the Bay shore and in a loca- 

 tion frequently flooded, was remarkable for its greater size and bulk. It was 

 built of weed stalks and finer material to a height of fifteen to eighteen 

 inches, and it measured over three feet long and two feet wide. It was of 

 uniform construction from the ground up with no indication of a "foreign" 

 foundation. 



In the more western States the marsh hawk sometimes nests in 

 bushy swamps or in bnish-covered slopes, or even hillsides, but more 

 commonly it selects more open grassj?^ situations, the margins of 

 slougli^, wet grassy hollows, or even extremely wet situations among 

 reeds, flags, or tules. In Nelson County, N. Dak., we found five 

 nests in one day, Jime 3, 1901. One was well made of sticks and 

 straws and lined with soft grasses; it was built up 14 inches above the 

 water in a patch of dead flags on the edge of a slough ; it contained 

 two young hawks, three normal eggs, one runt eg^, and a dead 

 spermophile. Another still finer nest, made of sticks, reeds, and 

 coarse weeds, was built up 18 inches above the water in a wet meadow 

 and measured 30 inches across the top. Other nests were similarly 

 located (pi. 26). 



Dr. John W. Sngden writes to me that in Salt Lake County, Utah, 

 on July 18, 1928, he found a nest, containing five half -incubated eggs, 

 "near the center of a 30-acre wheatfield on a dry farm, at least 4 

 miles from the nearest water. The nest was a shallow depression in 

 the ground lined with a few sticks and straws." Bendirc (1892) 

 mentions a nest found by George G. Cantwell on a haycock. 



Both birds assist in building the nest, the male bringing some of 

 the material and dropping it for his mate to arrange, but most of the 

 gathering and arranging of material is done by the female. E. L. 

 Sumner, Jr., watched a female building her nest and has sent me 

 his notes on it. He saw her make seven trips to the nest within 10 

 minutes. He saj^s : 



In carrying the sticks, if they are small, she nearly always uses her bill 

 alone ; if they are large she uses her feet ; in one case of a particularly large 

 branching stalk she carried it in beak plus both claws ; in another case she 

 transferred a piece from her beak to her claws while sailing toward the nest. 

 Once she carried a particularly large weed in her feet, but all the other times 

 she used her bill instead. Once she picked up a piece, started to fly with it, 

 but stopped and picked up another piece in addition, but in flying away with 

 them, dropped first one and then the other so that she had to continue on 

 across the rush patch to the other side and pick up another load. Once I saw 

 her tug violently at a weed that was still rooted, but it did not give way, and 

 so she walked a few steps farther on and picked up a loose piece instead. 



W. H. Laine (1928) reports finding a marsh hawk incubating on 

 a nest of 12 prairie-chicken eggs; the experiment was not a success, 



