THE OSPREY. 



125 



NOTES FROM THE DEVIL'S LAKE REGION. 



EUGENE S. ROLFE. 



THIS year it appeared that the Ferruginous another case on almost perfectly level prairie. Still 

 Rough-legged Hawk has been pretty well driv- another pair had placed their boulder-stayed nest at 

 en from the immediate vicinity of Minnewau the base instead of the crest of a stony hill, 

 kan, N. D., by the rapid settlement of the country. This species is singularly silent. Only in one in- 



This species has little taste for civilization and asso- stance have I heard a sound from these birds, or seen 

 ciation with man, and can only be found at its best them exhibit signs of mental disturbance, and that 

 in the roughest and most sterile, lonely regions. Our was this season when I took the young from a nest 

 hunting expedition of this season covered of such which I had been watching since early in May when 

 territory altogether over six hundred miles in the the eggs were deposited. My object was to photograph 

 Devil's Lake region of North Dakota, starting April the young birds at different stages of their growth. 

 27th with full camp outfit of team, tent, provisions, The parent birds — one of which was brooding the 

 ammunition and saddle horses. Camp every night young when I approached the nest — circled about 



closely over- 

 head uttering 

 squealing cries 

 closely resem- 

 bling those of 

 the Swainson 

 Hawk. On sev- 

 eral occasions 

 thelarger made 

 vigorous dash- 

 es toward m y 

 head ; and al- 

 together their 

 demeanor was 

 i n sharp con- 

 trast to the 

 usual air of 

 proud uncon- 

 cern which I 

 have hereto- 

 fore observed. 

 Unfort u nately 

 for my con- 



was pitched on 

 the edge of 

 some deep ra- 

 vine or coulee 

 in the depths of 

 which the snow 

 still lay deep, 

 b u t gradually 

 melting and 

 furnishing an 

 abundance of 

 pure water. 

 Notwithstan d- 

 ing the early 

 date and rigor- 

 ous conditions, 

 we found that 

 many Rough- 

 legs were set- 

 ting on the com- 

 pleted sets of 

 three, four, and 

 even five eggs. 



The nest is placed among the boulders on the crest templated pictures the young birds out of the nest 

 of some stony knob or knoll or high hill, or well up did not prove so hardy as was expected, and on the 

 the side of some lonely ravine, stayed in place by a first night succumbed to the cold, though in apparently 

 jutting boulder, is composed for the most part of comfortable quarters where I have successfully reared 

 coarse sticks and twigs of what is known as 'grease- two broods of Swainson's Hawks and one of Short- 

 wood,' a shrub growing on open prairie from one to eared Owl — an individual of which latter is herewith 

 four feet high, and in the spring generally burned at presented, age about two months, 

 the root by prairie fires sufficiently to snap off easily. On the trip before referred to, on a small, barren 



Buffalo ribs and other bones are favorite articles em- island in a most uninviting alkali lake we found the 

 ployed in construction. One nest noted by me this American Herring Gull and the Double-crested Cor- 

 year contained a heavy stick, cut and trimmed with morant nesting in colonies. Full sets of two and three 

 knife, fully an inch-and-a-half thick at the butt, and eggs of the former were observed on May 3, and I am 

 over five feet long — probably an ox-goad dropped by told this is the first record of sets of this species from 

 some passing immigrant. Another nest is reported North Dakota. The nests of the Double-crested Cor- 

 as containing a whole buggy whip. Dried grasses morant, numbering seven, somewhat cylindrical in 

 with roots adhering, turf and 'cow chips' are char- shape, built up from the ground among stones and 

 acteristic lining materials, and I have not yet observed boulders and evidently in use in previous years, were 

 a nest that did not contain one or all of these. at that time being repaired by the birds for occu- 



Unusual nesting sites were this year observed in pancy ; and they contained the complement of eggs 

 the case of a nest placed squarely on a huge boulder on May 25. 

 forming a center-piece for a 'buffalo wallow,' and in On the bare sand at the opposite extremity of the 



NEST AND EGGS OF THE FERRUGINOUS ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZ.^RD. 

 PHOTOGRAPH BY E. S. ROLFE. 



