A Family of North Dakota Marsh Hawks 435 



down on the bushes — they might well be a trifle fatigued, I thought! As 

 they sat up straight and tall, I noted the small, round heads, the pale gray 

 head and chest and yellow legs of the male, and the owl-like face of the 

 browner female. 



The next day, I surprised the gray Circus. At the awful sight of me, his 

 lower jaw dropped, and he fairly screeched out eck-eck-eck-eck-eck-eck-eck. 

 Then he got his mate, and they renewed the hospitable attentions of the previ- 

 ous day. Such a to-do did the misguided parents make that, when I looked into 

 the nest, the youngsters, all unmindful of the cause, sat back on their yellow 

 claws in defiant half -aggressive attitude. 



When I started home, the brown female let me go, but the gray male 

 followed me, and was so persistently disagreeable that I began to suspect 

 that diving at the head of a lady was really less work than supplying 

 rodents for a hungry family of five! A Kingbird neighbor who, on 

 occasion assailed my assailant, diving at him till he actually squealed, 

 made me wonder if, unable to punish this pestiferous little enemy, 

 Circus was taking it out on me! But no, the blame was mine. To wild 

 raptorial birds whose relatives nest in high tree-tops, my bold approach 

 to their ground nest may well have seemed intolerable. An umbrella blind 

 might have helped matters, and also more subtle psychological methods. In 

 watching families of small birds, I have always found that quiet reassuring 

 talk calms fears as nothing else can; but, though I started out to reassure the 

 Circus parents, their reception prevented me from persistently explaining my 

 mental attitude. When, rods and rods from a nest bombs hurl at your head, 

 you sometimes forget your point of view. And when, on my fourth visit, the 

 big Hawks acted as if about to pounce and carry me off, with shame be it 

 recorded, I so far forgot psychologic methods that I waved my camp-stool in 

 their faces ! 



But the young had to be photographed again, so on June 18, two days 

 after their first picture, the farmer's sisters went to the nest with me and 

 gently persuaded the recalcitrant nestlings to sit up and look pleasant. It 

 really seemed as if the interesting little fellows had grown preceptibly since 

 their first picture. At this time the old Hawks, perhaps thinking three people 

 too many to cope with, kept at a fairly respectful distance. 



The next morning I saw the pair before they saw me. To my surprise, they 

 were flying high, uttering low squeaUng notes that suggested love-calls, as 

 they toyed with each other in the air. They were not altogether off guard, 

 however, for, while I was watching them in the sky, their shadows darkened 

 the ground in front of me. Two days later they were again preoccupied, 

 sailing around together high in the sky, uttering soft whistling screams, 

 altogether unlike their distracted cackle, or even their quiet hunting-calls. 



By this time — June 21 — the young were feathering quite rapidly. One of 

 them had incipient tail feathers and also wing quills projecting an inch or more 



