ORNITHOLOGIST 



— AND — 



OOLOGIST. 



A Nest of Hen Hawks. 



Dr. Merriam says that Fish Hawks, A.O. 

 U. 364, do not breed as far up the Connect- 

 icut river as Hartford, but as they are al- 

 ways very common here about the middle of 

 April, I thought he might be mistaken. So 

 I watched the meadows where they fish 

 pretty closely, and also asked my brothers to 

 keep an eye open for big nests. As what I 

 am going to write has nothing to do with 

 Fish Hawks, I may as well say right here 

 that, though I once saw one with weeds on 

 her feet, we didn't find any nests, and I 

 guess that Dr. Merriam knows what he is 

 talking about alter all. 



The boys had been fishing for Alewi\es in 

 these meadows and, April 22, they told me 

 that they had several times seen " a big 

 bird, not a Fish Hawk," fly out of a large 

 nest which I had watched for the last four 

 years without seeing it used. 



So I got my climbers and rowed up there. 

 The water sometimes covers this place to a 

 depth of fifteen feet, and there is always 

 more or less there every spring. I saw the 

 bird, a Red-shouldered Hawk I found later, 

 and on going up to the nest saw that it had 

 been repaired a trifle and contained four 

 eggs. They were a dirty white, more or less 

 spotted with brown, mostly in small spots 

 but some blotches. The spots are no 

 thicker at one end than at the other. The 

 eggs are about the size of a small hen's egg, 

 rounder perhaps. They were almost ex- 

 actly like a set of five, well incubated, that I 

 took from a neighboring tree on the 30th 

 of last April. They measured 2. 16. \ 1.66, 



2.20xr.68, 2.18x1.70, 2.04x1.65, and 



2.16x1.68. 



By the way, it took me nearly two weeks 

 to blow one of those eggs. I had to fill it 

 with water and let the infant soften before I 

 could get him out. 



As I had those five already, 1 decided to 

 leave this set in the nest and watch them. 

 I found in the nest, beside the eggs, about 

 six inches of the tail of a grass snake. The 

 old lady had taken it to bed with her ! 



I went away as quietly as I could and 

 came back again on the first of May, but 

 the eggs had not flown yet. But on the 

 8th, when I went next, I thought some- 

 thing was the matter before I got to the 

 nest, for the female called up her mate, who 

 stayed most of the time in a grove of maples 

 near by, and together they made quite a 

 noise. Each time before she has slipped 

 off the nest as quietly as possible. 



On going up I found one egg hatched 

 and another with a hole in it three-quarters 

 of an inch in diameter. The bird's bill was 

 moving about weakly but he didn't seem to 

 be making any effort to get out ; getting his 

 wind, perhaps. There were only a few 

 small pieces of the shell in the nest, so I 

 think the old bird threw them over as soon 

 as the chick hatched. Of the other two 

 eggs, one was still whole and the other was 

 cracked a little where the bird was pushing 

 out from the inside. 



The chick that had hatched was quite 

 pretty, being covered thickly with light grey 

 down, which was nearly three-fourth inches 

 long on the head. The belly was entirely 

 bare. The litUe fellow peeped quite lustily 



Copyright, 1893, by Frank Blake Webster Company. 



