EASTERN PIGEON HAWK 75 



some other hawks, become sexually mature before they acquire the 

 adult plumage. This female had laid a set of four fertile eggs. 



Food. — The pigeon hawk is mainly a bird eater. Dr. A. K. Fisher's 

 (1893b) report on the contents of 56 stomachs says that 2 contained 

 poultry, 41 small birds, 2 mice, and 16 insects. The following birds 

 have been recorded in its food: Leach's petrel, green-winged teal, 

 woodcock, snipe, sandpipers, Eskimo curlew, plovers, small domestic 

 chickens, California quail, ptarmigans, pigeons, doves, chimney and 

 black swifts, flickers, jays, bobolink, meadowlark, blackbirds, grackles, 

 various sparrows, waxwings, swallows, warblers, vireos, gnatcatchers, 

 brown creeper, nuthatches, kinglets, pipit, robin, and thrushes. Other 

 things listed include pocket gophers, squirrels, mice, bats, toads, 

 lizards, snakes, dragonflies, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, crickets, 

 beetles, spiders, crawfishes, scorpions, and caterpillars. That this 

 little falcon is able to catch such rapid fliers as swifts and swallows, or 

 such nimble insects as dragonflies, speaks well for its powers of flight. 



Its boldness and courage are shown in its attacks on the larger 

 species. It has been known to enter a pigeon cote and kill and 

 carry off a pigeon. 



Dr. Fisher (1893b) says that "pigeons, flickers and grackles are 

 about as large birds as it usually attacks, though Dr. Dall in one 

 instance saw it kill a ptarmigan, and Dr. E. A. Mearns speaks of a 

 specimen shot in the act of destroying a hen." John Murdoch (1877) 

 mentions four pigeon hawks that came out to a vessel in the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence: "The first that appeared had a Leach's petrel, dead, in 

 his talons. He alighted with this, on the fore crosstrees, and pro- 

 ceeded to eat it." Dr. Elliott Coues (1861) saw one of these hawks, 

 at Henley Harbor, Labrador, "foraging among the immense flocks of 

 curlews (Numenius borealis), which then covered the hills in the 

 vicinity." 



Thomas Mcll wraith (1894) once saw one dash into a flock of black- 

 birds; "how closely they huddled together, as if seeking mutual pro- 

 tection, but he went right through the flock and came out on the other 

 side with one in each fist." 



Dr. B. H. Warren (1890) writes: "Two Pigeon Hawks during the 

 late fall lurked about the southern suburbs o'f the borough of West 

 Chester, preying at regular intervals on the pigeons of a blacksmith. 

 In one week the hawks killed or drove away fifty of the birds. The 

 hawks would enter the boxes and take from them the pigeons." 



Edward H. Forbush (1927) says of its hunting: 



It likes to take a stand on post, pole or tree where, having an unobstructed 

 view, it can survey at leisure the wild life of the locality, and from which it can 

 launch forth in swift pursuit of some passing bird, or plunge into some near-by 

 thicket after some timid warbler or sparrow. I never saw one descend almost 

 perpendicularly from a great height upon its prey, as the Duck Hawk often does, 



