82 



ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Vol. 14r-No. G 



of Blue Jays, which the owl had eaten while 

 covering her eggs; the tips and butts of the 

 quills were dovetailed with some approach to 

 art, being by far the best example of nidifica- 

 tion I ever met with in this species. 



We saw four crows worrying a Barred Owl 

 which was carrying some sort of quarry. The 

 crows shied off as we drew near, and the owl 

 pitched into a thick red cedar. After flushing 

 her, a fragment of old nest well feathered de- 

 coyed me up the savin, only to find a Robin 

 which the owl had dropped. 



We surprised three crows rifling an early 

 clutch of Ruffed Grouse; two crows carried 

 away an egg in their bills — or rather, impaled 

 on their bills — and two broken eggs were left 

 in the nest. 



A Marsh Hawk dropped down into a large 

 meadow, and, though we apparently quartered 

 every yard of ground, we could not flush her. 

 A long rope to be gradually loosed in increas- 

 ing circles must be used to locate this harrier. 



Cooper's were found to be very bold on this 

 trip. One perched on a low chestnut limb 

 overhanging the road, and was so intently 

 watching some guinea chicks that we could 

 almost touch his finely marked breast with 

 oui" whip as we drove under him. Another we 

 saw "feeling" with his talons in a hole in a 

 barn-yard wall after some escaping quarry. 

 From still a third farm-house, where we put 

 up our team, the farmer went that morning to 

 borrow a neighbor's gun to shoot a pair of 

 Cooper's that had been making forays. He 

 left behind him two hens with ten chickens 

 each, and returned to find that a fox had just 

 killed one hen and nine chicks, and the single 

 orphan chick had fled to the other hen who 

 was now brooding eleven chickens. We were 

 shown the dead hen from which Reynard had 

 eaten the head, legs and part of the breast, 

 while the chickens were bolted outright. 



Without particularizing all our "flnds," 

 I will repeat that the eggs were in the usual 

 haunts, in old nests, and from the same old 

 birds. But I have been asked, " How do I 

 know this?" What proof have I that no new 

 migrating hawks come in, and that these are 

 the self-same Buteos harried before? True, 

 there are no silver collars on the necks of my 

 boreaUs, and no metal tags marked " J. M. W." 

 on the legs of ray llneatusl But they are I'ec- 

 ognized by the series of eggs from year to 

 year, presenting individual markings and pe- 

 culiarities in size, shape, and color; by indiv- 

 idual nesting habits (such as the Love Lane 

 lineatus always lining her nest with hemlock), 



by differences in voice, and rarely by the 

 markings on the hawks themselves. 



I hope to show it in another way, and by 

 convincing data. If your cat catches the 

 mother Phoebe which has nested on your 

 porch for four years, no nest is built there 

 afterwards. If you shoot the pair of Prairie 

 Warblers which have bred three years in the 

 hazel thicket in your hillside jiasture, there 

 comes no new pair to take the situation. This 

 rule holds truer with our less abundant liap- 

 tores. May 25, 187(), John Young and I shot a 

 pair of breeding lineatus in the swamp back of 

 Laurel Hill, and though it is a secluded site, 

 and every way favorable for a liuteo's home, 

 no new hawk has nested there since. Young 

 and I, two successive seasons, March 10, 1S79, 

 March 80, 1880, shot males from a pair of Barred 

 Owls at Sunnyside, without breaking up the 

 home, but in April, 188;}, a taxidermist shot 

 the female, and, though six years have gone, 

 no owl has ever laid in this well hidden and 

 suitable hole. 



John Young shot one of my Cooper's on her 

 nest back of Spalding's Dam, Norwich, May 0, 

 1880, and no new Acrlpiter has yet come into 

 the woods which are yet standing and unfre- 

 quented. In three directions in our suburbs, 

 Messrs. Brand, Eley, and Richards shot female 

 Broad-winged Hawks breeding, and now none 

 are nesting near town. The records of fifteen 

 years multiply instances like these among my 

 Red-tails and Harriers. When I began col- 

 lecting, in 1875, there were six pairs of Sharp- 

 shinned Hawks dwelling in the pine and 

 hemlock groves surrounding the city; but they 

 were easy to shoot, and now I have none of 

 these tiny Accipiters to visit annually with my 

 old Raptorial friends and acquaintances. 



I conclude by saying it is true we did not 

 hear the Easter anthem of jabbering sparrows 

 in the city, but we heard the morning trio of 

 Purple Finch, Meadow Lark, and Vesijer Spar- 

 row. True, we did not walk up the carpeted 

 aisle of any church, but a morning shower had 

 so dampened the carpet of forest leaves that 

 we could, in every instance, walk unheard near 

 enough to flush our sitting Bntfos, thus making 

 assurance doubly sure. And if we did not see 

 the gaudy but unknown exotic birds on a hun- 

 dred new Easter bonnets, our way was glad- 

 dened by the vivid azure of many Bluebirds in 

 nuptial garb. Of owls and hawks, we ran across 

 eight varieties, and many individuals; saw a 

 string of eighty-three geese flying low and 

 honking grandly, and noted two Dusky Duck, 

 two Teal, two Woodcock, seven Grouse, and 



