182 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Their loud, wild cries of kee-ah., kee-ah are frequently repeated as 

 they circle overhead, their wings and tails broadly extended and 

 stiffly held with only slight adjustments. Frequently they swing 

 near each other and then far apart, or, mounting high in the air, 

 one may make a thrilling dive downward tow\ird the other. These 

 evolutions are indulged in every year, even by mated pairs, and con- 

 stitute, I believe, their principal courtship display. Dr. Tyler tells 

 me that he has seen four birds thus engaged, perhaps in a spirit 

 of rivalry, or perhaps merely in play, as an outlet for surplus energy. 

 Lewis O. Shelley has sent me the following account of a courtship 

 performance : 



On March 24, 1930, while crossing a back-l.ving mowing between two plots 

 of woodland, a red-shouldered hawk was seen to come from the west and 

 begin to mount higher by spiraliug, until it had gained an altitude of about 

 1,000 feet, screaming the common Jcee-you, kee-you note every little while, usu- 

 ally on the outer swuop for the next vault in the rise. At the zenith of its 

 flight the calls were loudest, two-syllabled screams. 



Just at this time another hawk, the female, came from the west, crossed 30 

 feet overhead, and alighted in a bare oak 200 yards away at the edge of the 

 woodland. The male had evidently been watching the female's approach, as, 

 several moments before I knew of her presence, he began shooting downward 

 with swift lunges for several hundred feet at once, checking the rush and 

 sweeping a wide spiral before again dropping down. No sooner had the 

 female alighted than the male, from a height of at least 200 feet, made a last 

 rapid drop that landed him on the female's back. Just the second before this 

 contact she had spread her wings and crouched down close to the branch and 

 crosswise of it. Copulation was immediate, occupying about 30 seconds. Then 

 the male hopped along the branch and they sat facing opposite directions, 

 immovable, a foot or so apart, for 10 minutes. At the end of this period, the 

 male launched forth and flew back toward the west, where he proceeded to 

 climb beyond the range of the naked eye. Soon after he left the oak, the 

 female followed, but did not go near his location. 



Nesting. — Our experience with the nesting habits of the red- 

 shouldered hawk in southeastern Massachusetts has been quite ex- 

 tensive, covering a period of 50 years. I find in my notes the records 

 of 173 nests that I have examined personally ; if I include the nests 

 examined by my field companions, F. H. Carpenter and C. S. Day, 

 the list would run up to nearly 250. This is not, however, a remark- 

 able record, for my correspondence with others in the Northeastern 

 States shows that many of them have found these hawks equally 

 common. Nearly all collections have big series of the eggs of this 

 hawk, which speaks well for its popularity. I shall never forget 

 the thrill I experienced when I found my first hawk's nest and how 

 I prized those handsome eggs ! I have never forgotten what Henry 

 D. Minot (1877) wrote in one of my earliest bird books: "Size has 

 always a fascination for the world. The young collector prizes a 

 hawk's Qgg more than that of the rarest warbler. The egg is big, 



