76 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



and I have not seen one actually strike it prey. Its usual method is to chase the 

 prospective victim, which in most cases it can overtake with apparent ease; but 

 in my experience it is frequently baffled by the sudden doublings of the pursued, 

 until it gives up the chase or the hunted bird escapes by suddenly diving into 

 water or dense shrubbery. I have seen a Pigeon Hawk chase a small flock of 

 Common Terns without even touching one, and once in Florida I watched one 

 pursuing for a long time a flock of Sandpipers, but it was unable to catch one as 

 long as the chase was maintained within my field of vision. The hawk seemed to 

 be able to overtake them and to follow their flash-like turns quite closely, but 

 could not lay its claws on a single bird; snipes and sandpipers continually escape, 

 and probably the hawk cannot often take a vigorous shore bird in full possession 

 of its faculties, but a weak, sickly or wounded bird would stand little chance 

 before it. 



Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1930) says: 



I was watching, at Plum Island, a flock of twenty-one Semipalmated Sandpipers 

 and a few Sanderlings, when they suddenly rose and flew off from the beach, 

 close to the water, pursued by a falcon. Suddenly the falcon shot up for about 

 ten feet into the air, banking with its wings and tail widely spread, then darted 

 down with a splash into the water, submerging its outstretched legs, its belly and 

 part of one wing. Rising with a sandpiper in its talons, it flew to an old stump 

 washed up on the shore where it proceeded to tear out the breast and wing 

 feathers of its victim. 



This is what we saw but it is evident that it had struck down the sandpiper 

 in flight so quickly that our eyes failed to follow, and had immediately turned to 

 pick it up. The victim was a Semipalmated Sandpiper and the falcon a Pigeon 

 Hawk. 



I once saw a pigeon hawk flying with some small object in its talons, 

 probably a mouse, which it was apparently eating on the wing. 

 Holding it forward and downward in one foot, it occasionally bent 

 down its head and tore off a bit without slackening its speed. Johan 

 Beetz, of Piastre Bay, Quebec, a close observer of birds, told us that 

 the male feeds the female during the incubation period. He said that 

 this is often accomplished on the wing; the male, having secured a 

 small bird, or mouse, flies toward the nest and calls to his mate, who 

 flies out to meet him; mounting high in the air, 20 yards or so above 

 his mate, he drops his prey; she darts in and seizes it before it reaches 

 the ground, turning over on her back beneath it and seizing it in her 

 talons from below. 



Lewis O. Shelley sends me the following note: "April 30, 1931, late 

 in the afternoon, when two white-throated sparrows were feeding by 

 one of my bird-banding traps, a pigeon hawk alighted in a large cherry 

 tree. It could evidently hear the sparrows while not seeing them. 

 There was a hedge of alders along the brook just beyond my traps; 

 after a few minutes of unavailing watching on the hawk's part, be- 

 cause the sparrows had detected its presence and 'froze', it surprised 

 me by flying headlong into the alders with a great confusion, in an 

 effort to frighten the birds to flight. One ran directly into a trap 

 and 'froze', and did not move for ten minutes, even after the hawk 



