ZONE-TAILED HAWK 213 



walking down the bed of the stream we were delighted to see a zone- 

 tailed hawk fly from the leafy top of a tall cotton wood (pi. 61). Its 

 nest was barely visible in the thick foliage near the end of a slender 

 branch in the very top of the tree, at least 60 feet from the gromid. 

 The hawk began screaming and was soon joined by its mate; both 

 birds circled about in the vicinity as long as we were there. There 

 was no doubt about its identity, but, to make doubly sure, I shot the 

 female ; I could easily have shot both. The nest looked inaccessible, 

 but we made a scoop out of a tripod leg, a handkerchief, and a 

 piece of barbed wire ; and Mr. Willard made a spectacular and daring 

 climb, tying the upper branches together with ropes, and getting near 

 enough to the nest to scoop out the single fresh egg. When I skinned 

 the bird the next day I found an egg in her oviduct fully formed 

 and ready to be laid. The nest could not be closely examined on 

 account of its position, but it was at least partially lined with green 

 leaA^es. 



Major Bendire (1892) has shown that some of the earlier accounts 

 of the supposed nesting of this bird are open to question and may 

 refer to the Mexican black hawk, which might be mistaken for the 

 zone-tailed. The nest that he found on April 22, 1872, on Rillito 

 Creek, about 40 feet up in a crotch of a big cottonwood, was un- 

 doubtedly authentic ; his hasty descent from the tree, with an egg in 

 his mouth, when he discovered some Apache Indians watching him, is 

 historic. He also mentions two nests found by Dr. Edgar A. Mearns 

 in Arizona, the parent birds being shot in each case. The nests were 

 both in forks of large cottonwoods, one 25 feet and one 50 feet from 

 the ground ; the nests were "coarsely built of rather large sticks, with 

 considerable concavity, * * * lined only with green leaves of 

 cottonwood attached to the twigs." 



A. W. Anthony w^rote to Major Bendire (1892) that he found these 

 hawks "not uncommon" on the San Pedro Martir Mountains in 

 Lower California at an elevation of about 7,000 feet. Two pairs were 

 seen on April 24, both nesting in tall pines. "The birds were greatly 

 worried at our presence, flying about overhead and constantly utter- 

 ing a loud querulous cry, not unlike that of Buteo horealis. One of 

 the nests, examined from the ground, was rather a bulimy affair of 

 sticks, and placed in the very top of a pine about 70 feet up. Several 

 shots from our rifles failed to drive the birds away. Shortly after- 

 ward a second pair were seen, and one of these was secured." 



Frank Stephens, while collecting for William Brewster (1883), 

 found a nest near Tucson in a mesquite "well hidden by bunches of 

 mistletoe." 



Eggs. — Sets of two eggs are the rule for the zone-tailed hawk, occa- 

 sionally only one or as many as three. The eggs are ovate, short- 

 ovate, or nearly oval in shape, and the shell is smooth or finely 



