246 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



that it was killing his chickens, and that he had shot it just after 

 it had eaten a chicken. I skinned it and opened the stomach in his 

 presence, and showed him, to his astonishment, that its crop con- 

 tained the remains, easily distinguishable, of a young rat." 



Behavio7\ — The broad-winged hawk is generally considered a 

 sluggish bird, quiet, gentle, unobtrusive, and unsuspicious; it is the 

 tamest of all the hawks; one has no difficulty in approaching it, as 

 it sits on some low limb in the woods calmly watching the intruder 

 with apparent indifference. If forced to fly it flaps along through 

 the trees, much after the manner of an owl, and alights again at no 

 great distance. But above the treetops it is far from sluggish in its 

 soaring flight, fully equal to the best of the Buteos in sailing on its 

 broad wings. Mr. Shelley has sent me the following interesting 

 notes on one of its spectacular flight maneuvers : 



The soariug of the broad-winged hawk, in 1926, was watched on several 

 occasions. A family group of six birds had been noted about a densely wooded 

 tract and a hill known as Smith's Hill, where I often observed adults earlier 

 in the year as they crossed over its rocky summit to hunt over the lower val- 

 leys to the west. Little time was available to spend with them, but with the 

 young fledged and on the wing, their hunting excursion as a family unit was 

 always a spectacular sight. A still more pleasing exhibition was when, toward 

 the period of the fall migration, they met in what I considered a spirit of play. 

 In this performance they resembled more than anything a batch of dry leaves 

 lifted and tossed and whirled on a zephyr of brisk autumn wind. A low call 

 would be given, believed to be from an adult, whereupon the birds if separated 

 would congregate at the spot where the first bird wheeled and sailed and 

 called some 200 feet in the air. Then, with the family together, more calls 

 could be heard, growing fainter as the birds rose in their display. Slowly at 

 first, but gradually gaining momentum, the six birds on set pinions soared in 

 and out among each other, round and round in a radius not greater than a 

 quarter mile, lifting and ducking, volplaning and diving steeply toward earth 

 at varying angles, constantly rising, nevertheless, into the clear blue sky. As 

 height was gained and maintained, the dives and sails became swifter, in the 

 forms of arcs and a series of dips and rises ; a lower bird rising above them 

 all, only to side-skip, arc, dive, and rise again, another repeating the maneuver, 

 then another, and another. As leaves on the wind current, there seemed no 

 advantageous goal to their actions, except to rise, slowly at first and then 

 with the gain of altitude, swiftly, up, up, and finally, lost to sight. Then in 

 from 5 to 20 minutes they reappeared as tiny dots, by the aid of binoculars, 

 as they shot down plummetwise, banked, regained altitude, but slowly lowering, 

 in spectacular sweeps through the air, growing clearer until the entire phy- 

 sique could be made out, and, finally, on set wings, a sail that would take them 

 to the summit of Smith's Hill and the dark wilderness fastness of the Fuller 

 Wood beyond. 



An example of extreme tameness or stupidity is the incident re- 

 lated by Audubon (1840) when the hawk sat quietly on its nest while 

 Bakewell covered it with his handkerchief and brought it down; 

 afterwards it sat unafraid while Audubon measured it and drew its 



