96 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



always find nests of this species where young have been raised dvn-ing the 

 year. At this time of the year the down and droppings still remain glued 

 to the nest of fine twigs. The following spring one is sure to find a hawk's 

 nest in the same neighborhood. 



Courtship. — Lewis O. Shelley has sent me the following note : 



At this time botli hawks were seen to come from the woodland and flap 

 along beside an old roadway, dashing and circling at and about each other 

 over a nearby mowini:. Inside uf 5 raiimtes they returned to the maple 

 tree, alighted, the male on a dead branch some 5 feet directly below the 

 female; both facing east, standing crosswise of their perches with heads 

 turned to the right. The female moved first, was heard to call several times in 

 a modulated key, and the male answering once, both notes the same and 

 similar to the /)eep of young chicks. Suddenly the female crouched along the 

 limb and, as though this were a signal, the male launched forth on set wings, 

 banked and alighted about 4 feet from the female, tlien sidled toward her 

 until their wings touched. The male then settled on his perch immovable, 

 looking away and uttering a feeble whine. With this whine, the throat could 

 be seen in agitation, I believe due to the vocal efforts while having a full crop. 

 It was fully 3 minutes before mating took place, the female remaining crouched 

 the while, and, with mating, both went in for much wing-flapping for 40 

 seconds. The male then returned to his perch beside the female and both sat 

 still for nearly half an hour of utter silence. Then the low whining on the 

 male's part was repeated and mating immediately followed. The birds did 

 more fluttering, but the display lasted less than 30 seconds. After another 

 interval mating again took place. And this time, losing their balance, both 

 birds actually tumbled head over heels to the ground and not until then did 

 one fly. The male was seen to be gripping the feathers of the female's back, 

 but this alone could not have buoyed their descent together. At the first of 

 their fall, however, the female was seen to spread her wings and beat them 

 several times as when rising in air, and thus probably hindered a more abrupt 

 fall than was the case. 



Nesting. — In southeastern Massachusetts the sharp-shinned hawk 

 was formerly a fairly common breeding bird, though we always con- 

 sidered the nest a desirable find. We used to find the nest practically 

 every year that we hunted for it, and one season we found five nests. 

 We could generally count on finding the nest in the same vicinity for 

 several years in succession. But in recent years, with the growing 

 scarcity of small birds in this section this hawk has been steadily de- 

 creasing in numbers, until now wo seldom find a nest. With us the 

 standard nesting site has always been in a dense grove of medium- 

 sized white pines {Pinvs strohvs), one of our commonest forest trees; 

 11 out of 18 nests definitely recorded in my notes were in such dense 

 places; 17 in all were in these pines. Occasionally we have found 

 the nest in more open groups of these pines or in mixed woods of 

 pines and oaks. Once I found a nest on Cape Cod, where the white 

 pine does not grow, in a slender little pitch pine {Pinus rigida) in 

 oak woods; it was only 14 feet above the ground and contained six 

 eggs; and in one of the small oaks near it, at about the same height, 

 was an old nest that was shown to me as their nest of the previous 



