126 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



silver-gray below, with narrow black or slate-gray bars ; proud and resolute of 

 mien, with brilliant orange eyes through which the fierce spirit of the fiery- 

 hearted warrior gleams at times like points of living flame -the goshawk ranks 

 second to none in martial beauty and in fearlessness. 



Nesting. — The main breeding range of the goshawk is in the heavily 

 wooded portions of eastern Canada and a few of the extreme northern 

 States, although a few scattered pairs nest as far south as the moun- 

 tainous regions of Pennsylvania and western Maryland. The only 

 nest I ever saw was found on June 10, 1912, on a steep, heavily 

 wooded mountainside, near the Fox Island River in Newfoundland. 

 While I was exploring the base of this mountain, I was attracted by 

 the screams of the hawks and started up the steep slope to look for 

 the nest, which I eventually found a long distance away from where 

 I first heard the hawks. The nest was about 20 feet up in a slender, 

 leaning paper birch, resting partly in a crotch of the birch and partly 

 on the trunk of a dead spruce that had fallen into the same crotch; 

 the latter was nearly horizontal, as it had fallen from a point higher 

 up on the steep slope (pi. 39). There was a fine view from the nest 

 over the valley of the river far below. It was a large nest, fully 3 

 feet in diameter and 18 inches thick; it was made of clean, fresh 

 sticks, nearly level on top, very slightly hollowed, and decorated 

 with fresh sprigs of balsam fir. It contained only one young bird, 

 less than half grown, on which the plumage was well started on the 

 wings and back. Both old birds were quite demonstrative while I 

 was hunting for the nest, flying about, alighting on the trees near 

 me, and screaming all the time; but while I was watching the nest, 

 on that and the following two days, I never saw anything of the 

 hawks; this was in marked contrast with the experiences of others. 

 Remains of rabbits and ptarmigan were found near the nest tree, 

 and in the nest one day was a rusty blackbird. 



The goshawk nests regularly in the three northern New England 

 States and in the Adirondack region in New York, very sparingly 

 in Massachusetts, and rather often if not regularly in Pennsylvania. 

 Of its nesting habits in Maine, Ora W. Knight (1908) says: "They 

 nest in late April or early May, placing the large bulky structure of 

 sticks and twigs, lined with hemlock bark, green hemlock twigs, 

 willow and poplar twigs, with the expanding catkins attached, in 

 some convenient tree. Often the nest is in a small birch or maple 

 not over thirty feet uf), at other times it is in an evergreen, either 

 pine, spruce or fir, but hard wood growth seems to be preferred by 

 them." 



The first nest to be recorded in Massachusetts was found by Dr. 

 R. T. Fisher in the Harvard Forest, in Petersham, where a pair 

 of these hawks has been known to breed for at least three years. 



