80 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



alights the male follows her and walks or flies around her. On the 

 ground he bows to her and swells with amorous ordor. Sometimes 

 the male flies alone across the marsh rising and falling alternately 

 and with each fall turning a complete somersault, as if to show his 

 larger mate what a clever and wonderful bird he really is. Again 

 he 'carries on' in the same way while flying in her company." 



Nesting. — In southeastern Massachusetts, at least in the region I 

 hunt over, the march hawk is a rare breeder. My first nest was 

 found in a sphagnum bog, overgrown with low huckleberries, 

 pitcherplants, and scattered small larches, and surrounded with 

 thickets of alder and swamp honeysuckle, a secluded spot. The nest 

 was a flimsy structure of light, dry sticks and straws, loosely placed 

 on the flattened tops of the low huckleberry bushes, only a few 

 inches above the water and the thick growth of sphagnum moss and 

 pitcherplants. It held five eggs on April 30, the last two having 

 been laid during the past three days, indicating that the eggs may be 

 laid on successive daj^s (pi. 26). 



Another and better nest was found in a somewhat different swamp ; 

 it was densely overgrown with alders, swamp azaleas, huckleberries, 

 and other bushes, in some places higher than my head and difficult 

 to penetrate, but in the center was a more open space, where the 

 bushes were lower and more scattered, with a few brakes and flags 

 growing up among them. Here the nest was placed on slightly 

 elevated ground among some small bushes and brakes. It was a 

 handsome and well-made nest of dry straws, Aveed stems, and sticks 

 and lined with finer straws, brake stems, and thistle tops; it meas- 

 ured about 23 by 20 inches in outside and 9 by 8 inches in inside 

 diameter; the material in the center of the nest was about 2 inches 

 deep. It held five spotted eggs on May 26. 



But our local birds do not always nest in swamps. We have 

 found them nesting on high and dry ground in what we call sprout 

 lands, where woods have been cut off and where sprouts are growing 

 on the stumps, but usually near a swamp or meadow. In such a 

 place a similar nest to those described above is built on the dry 

 ground and the larger stumps are used as perches or feeding sta- 

 tions. Other observers have described similar nesting sites at vari- 

 ous eastern points. 



Charles A. Urner (1925) made a careful study of three nests on 

 the salt marshes of New Jersey, of which he says : 



One nest found was in the center of a large clump of High-tide Bush (Iva 

 oraria), and two were even more securely hidden in large beds of thick reeds 

 {Phragmites communis). One was on dry, sandy ground, the other two on 

 the wet marsh, occasionally flooded hy tide. 



Here I found an interesting difference indicating that the Harrier varies the 

 height of its nest with the danger of floods in its chosen location. A nest 



