200 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Florida. In Florida it is decidedly the commonest hawk and quite 

 evenly distributed in all kinds of timbered regions; it seems to be 

 equally at home in the extensive flat pine woods and in the dense 

 live-oak hammocks. It is much more abundant than hawks are else- 

 where, is quite tame and conspicuous, and, during the breeding season, 

 very noisy. It seems to be less of a forest bird and is oftener seen in 

 open country than is its northern relative. It is most abundant in 

 regions like the Kissimmee Prairie, where wide open prairies or 

 savannas are dotted with small hammocks of live oaks and palmettos. 

 In the fiat pine woods it is more widely scattered and seems to prefer 

 the smaller tracts or the vicinity of small cypress swamps. 

 Courtship. — Donald J. Nicholson (1930) writes: 



Early in December the birds begin their wild courtship "songs", which consist 

 of loud, piercing, shrill calls, or screams, given while circling in the air. With 

 loud cries they either soar or flap their wings rapidly, going in a circle higher 

 and higher. From one to four individuals may be seen in the air at a time 

 over the chosen nesting site. Spirited swoops and long dives through the air 

 are often seen, they calling sharply the while. These cries are given also 

 flying from one place to another. They are most noisy at this period, and keep 

 it up throughout the entire day at intervals. 



Nesting. — The Florida red-shouldered hawk nests in a variety of 

 situations and is not particular as to the choice of a tree. My first 

 nest was found on April 24, 1902, at Oak Lodge, across the Indian 

 River from Grant. It was about 25 feet from the ground, in a nearly 

 horizontal crotch of a wide-spreading live oak, in the middle of a 

 dense hammock of live oaks and palmettos. The nest was a handsome 

 but bulky affair, measuring 24 inches in diameter and 18 inches high, 

 the inner cavity being 10 inches across and 3 inches deep. It was 

 made of sticks, profusely draped with Spanish moss hanging down 

 in a long festoon on one side and decorated with white down and two 

 sprigs of evergreen; it was lined with green leaves of the live oak, 

 Spanish moss, a snake's skin, and strips of inner bark. It contained 

 only one ^gg., nearly ready to hatch. 



A different type of nesting, more typical of the northern or the 

 Texas varieties, was seen in the heavy, river-bottom forest along the 

 Hillsboro River. This magnificent forest contains some of the finest 

 timber I have ever seen in Florida — live oaks, pin oaks, hickories, 

 locusts, palmettos, pines, and cedars, with an undergTowth of haw- 

 thorn, ironwood, and dogwood. High up in one of the largest pin 

 oaks, fully 50 feet, was the hawk's nest, much as we should expect to 

 find one in our northern woods. Although the hawks were flying 

 about and screaming on February 22, 1925, the nest was empty at 

 that time; but my companion, Oscar E. Baynard, collected a set of 

 eggs from it later. 



On March 8, 1925, while we were walking along the edge of a 

 cypress swamp in Polk County, we heard a hawk scream and saw it 



