AMERICAN ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK 275 



ting adults. I opened the stomach in his presence and found it 

 stuffed to its utmost capacity with the fur and bones of numerous 

 field mice, and entirely destitute of bird bones or feathers, yet I 

 very much doubt if this object lesson would prevent the gamekeeper 

 from killing the next rough -legged hawk, if he could do so. Preju- 

 dices like this are difficult to eradicate. 



It is generally believed that the roughleg captures and eats ducks 

 crippled by gunners, and this was reported for Utah Lake by Henry 

 W. Henshaw (1875), although he found the remains of mice only 

 in the stomachs of 11 roughlegs captured in this region. Dr. Fisher 

 (1893) quotes the above and adds: "The examination of such a con- 

 siderable number of specimens from a locality in which multitudes 

 of ducks occur, and the finding of nothing but the remains of mice is 

 quite conclusive evidence that the former is not their favorite food. 

 Recently Mr. Henshaw informed the writer that the above state- 

 ment relative to this hawk feeding on water fowl was based on re- 

 ports of gunners, which he now believes to be incorrect." [McAtee 

 (1935) reports one pied-billed grebe, one ruddy duck, and two smaller 

 birds identified in 99 stomachs examined, "but it seems probable that 

 the first two mentioned were crippled or dead when found by the 

 hawk."] 



Kenneth Racey (1922), writing of this hawk in Washington State, 

 says : "One was seen to rise from the ground and on going to the 

 spot a dead Mallard was found with the breast eaten away. The 

 Mallard had evidently been killed the clay before by some hunter, 

 as the feathers were covered with frost, but the breast had been 

 freshly eaten." A roughleg shot on the prairie was "very fat, and 

 its stomach contained the breast of a Mallard duck." 



Forbush (1927) records that he has "seen a statement that remains 

 of the western meadowlark have been found in its stomach." Turner 

 says in his notes of the Ungava region : "I have never seen any feath- 

 ers about the nests indicating that birds had been used as food for 

 the young, except at a nest just back of the station at Davis Inlet 

 a young Dendragapus canadensis of about two days of age was found 

 lying near the side of a nest containing three young." H. J. Pear- 

 son (1898) found a headless young snow bunting beside a nest of 

 young of the European form. 



While records of rodent food of this hawk abound in literature, ac- 

 tual reports of the use of birds as food are exceedingly rare. I have 

 collected all I could find. Dead birds as well as dead mammals and 

 fish and even carrion are eaten by this hawk. Dr. Fisher (1893) 

 quotes Maynard to the effect that they "feed upon fish and the dead 

 animals cast up by the sea", and he quotes Vernon Bailey's account 

 of their eating the skinned carcasses of muskrats. 



