The OoLOGiST. 



VOL. XI. NO. 5. 



ALBION, N. Y., MAY, 1894. 



Whole No. 103 



My Broadwings of '92 and '93 



"Tig-g-ec-e U'g-g-e-i-c" was the shrill 

 Hawk shriek, that stirred my blood, 

 one of the tirst warm days of April, in 

 1892, as I entered a dense belt of timber 

 skirting a noisy swollen creek. The 

 bird swept by me, close at hand, the 

 characteristic markings appearing so 

 plainly that though the birtl was a 

 stranger to me, I readily identified it 

 bj' subsequent mental comparisons of 

 this and other birds with the dried skin 

 of a specimen killed by me in '84 but 

 never identified, my work having lain 

 meauAvhile in other fields. 



The previous March I had noted, in a 

 a burr -oak wood amid neighboring 

 fields, a nest which, in its construction 

 and its location, told me that here was 

 the work of some other bird than our 

 common Cooper's Hawk. 



May loth I visited this wood. The 

 old nest was vacant but fortj" rods away 

 in another burr oak I luckily saw, close 

 to the trunk, two-thirds up, and fifteen 

 feet from the ground, the bare skeleton 

 of a coarse stick nest, Avith suspicious 

 flecks of down clinging to the rough 

 bark. A moment found me looking 

 into its vacant slovenliness.— adorned 

 with naught bnt a delicate spray of pop- 

 lar in fresh budding leaf. I turned, 

 disgusted, to descend, when that keen, 

 characteristic and unique "Tig-g-e-e-e" 

 rang out again. May 21st I reascended 

 the tree. Mamma Lntissimus sat near 

 b}' shrilly scolding. Two exquisite eggs 

 now lay in the rude nest now gaily 

 adorned with leafy tinge. 



This is .set I. Two eggs, incul)a- 

 tion one-fifth. Egg 1 rounded, covered 

 entirely with lilac spots, the smaller 

 end daul)ed with dark cinnamon, size 

 1.8x 1.5. Egg 2, oblong, solidly and ex- 

 quisitely marbled with lavender, heav- 



iest at lai'ge end where also a few sharp- 

 ly accented cinnamon spots appeared, 

 size 1.9x1.45. 



Set. II. Leaving, one mile south of 

 Owatonna, the miry highwaj^ leading 

 to Bohemia, one dives into the moss be- 

 witching woodlands. The wood road 

 winds river-ward through mazes of 

 black oak and across bits of meadow 

 and on through a quagmire bordering 

 a creek along which stands primeval 

 ashes, oaks and walnuts outposts of a 

 dense wood along the run. The nar- 

 row road being the only sign of human 

 vandalism. Here, in the Spring of '92, 

 the note of a Broad -wing stopped me as 

 I was hastening river- ward along the 

 wood path, and instantly the bird 

 swept past, with wonderful swiftness, 

 bearing a twig in her claws. Later in 

 the day, at the margin of a field near 

 by I saw a pair of the birds copulating, 

 the male SAvooping doAvn upon his mate 

 as she rested, lightly in a sapling top. 

 Yes, I vainly though repeatedh' sought 

 the nest — finding two old nests of 

 Cooper's, a frequented lair of Scops. 

 but not a sign of my Broad-wings. 



But on Maj' 20, "93, after a verj' busy 

 day. I hurried my horse and carriage 

 down the wood road, just as sun set: 

 and behold, at the very edge of the 

 wood, in a slender elm, that leaned 

 over the creek bed. in the first limb 

 crotch. 30 feet up, from a fragile nest. I 

 saw, half by accident, the tail of a 

 Hawk ijrojecting. 



ft was the nest of '92 relined with 

 twigs and remarkably neat. The eggs 

 are the most delicate in coloring that I 

 have ever taken. Incubation zero to 

 begun. Egg 1, pointed sub-si^herieal. 

 slightly stippled with bright cinnamon, 

 and at the smaller end a marbling of 

 the same, size 1.76x 1.42. Egg 2. ovate, 

 blotched with lilac mostly at the small 



