EASTERN RED-TAILED HAWK 155 



one of their parents is sighted they become quite excited and indulge 

 in louder screams in feeble imitation of the adult's notes. 



I have never happened to see the young leave the nest, but Mr. 

 Sumner's notes, applying to the western race, describe such an event. 

 Mr. Shelley writes: 



The adults are quiet during the incubation period and until the young are 

 on the wing. As soon as tliis stage is reached, they are brought east of the hill 

 where the nest is situated to the broad, open fields and mowings of the nearby 

 farms, where they spend the forenoons hunting their legitimate prey and notli- 

 ing else. Afternoons as a rule they skirt the country to the west of the nesting 

 hill. But on the east side their calls can be heard all forenoon for a month 

 or more, during the period the young are being taught to fare* for themselves. 

 Many a time I have seen them cateliing mice. An adult plunges down 50 to 100 

 feet or so at a scuttling mouse, checks its rush a few feet above the ground, 

 and, turning onto its back, gives a wheezy whistle of two syllables, whereupon 

 one of the circling young dives, holds itself suspended clumsily over the spot 

 marked by the parent, and, quite often, obtains the rodent wlien it moves 

 again. The parents do, rarely, drop disabled mice from a good height as though 

 discarding them, but in reality it is done so that the young may catch them in 

 midair, which they attempt to do with fair luck ; I have seen it done on several 

 occasions. 



Mrs. A. B. Morgan (1915) gives an account of a young red-tailed 

 hawk which she raised in captivity that developed into a very inter- 

 esting and most intelligent pet. 



Plumages. — The small downy young red-tailed hawk is well cov- 

 ered above with long, soft, silky down, buffy white or grayish white 

 in color; the white, liairlike filaments on the head are erected in life 

 and fully half an inch long; the down on the under parts is shorter 

 and scantier. This first down is replaced later by a whiter and 

 woollier down. When about IT daj^s old the wing quills appear, 

 closely followed by those of the tail. Before the young bird is half 

 grown the feathers appear on the scapulars and the mid-dorsal 

 tracts ; the feathers come in next on the pectoral tracts. By the time 

 the bird is four weeks old it is nearly fully grown and almost fully 

 fledged, the last of the down persisting on the head, central belly, 

 and legs. It is now ready to leave the nest and is able to fly. 



In fresh juvenal plumage, in June and July, the upper parts are 

 "warm sepia" to "bone brown", with narrow edgings of "tawny" or 

 "ochraceous-tawny" ; the tail is "bister", barred with brownish black, 

 tinged and tipped with buffy white, and silvery white on the under 

 side, with the bars showing through ; in western birds the tail is often 

 tinged with "tawny" or "orange-cinnamon", sometimes extensively 

 so, but in eastern birds this color is seldom, if ever, seen ; the under 

 parts are largely white, more or less tinged with "ochraceous-'buff", 

 which fades out to white later in the season ; the throat and sides of 

 the neck are narrowly streaked with sepia, and the belly and flanks 



