BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 191 



which I was solitarily driving, I discovered a hawk sitting on a 

 limb of a sapling, about eight feet from the ground, and not 

 more than thirty feet distant from me. With a charge of No. 

 12 shot, I secured him instantly without having drawn blood 

 through the feathers. Dropping my bird into a large, stiff 

 paper cornucopia with which I always provide myself, I was in 

 the act of laying my capture into my basket, when I descried 

 an immense Fish-hawk threading its devious way through the 

 tops of the lofty trees of the forest, with a living pickerel 

 trailing and writhing from one extended foot. Remaining mo- 

 tionless, and the hawk not seeing either me or my horse and 

 carriage, it spread its immense wings upwards in the act of 

 lighting on a large limb, sixty feet perpendicularly over me, 

 when I pulled trigger on a No. 8 charge and brought directly 

 to my feet both hawk and fish, the former of which was en- 

 tirely lifeless, but the fish was as lively as if just brought in 

 with a hook. I have mentioned these circumstances before in 

 connection with the Fish Hawk, and now again because the 

 first hawk was a Broad-wing, and the first I had ever had in 

 my hands. Both birds were duly and truly mounted, and are 

 in the museum of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, 

 after the lapse of twenty years, in good order, to the credit of 

 that faithful taxidermist, Mr. Wm. Howling of this city, (Min- 

 neapolis). The event and the whole beautiful scene in the 



j solitude of that charming forest, on a bright May day of 1867, 

 constitute the pinnacle of my delightful experiences in the 

 field of ornithology. 



The Broad-wing Hawks arriv^e about the first of April, and 

 about the 20th begin to build their nests, some of which, how- 

 ever, are not occupied before the tenth of June. No other 

 species manifest less uniformity in time of commencement. 

 The average time is not far from the 5th of May I find. 

 The structure consists of medium- sized sticks externally, 



|| over which are imposed finer ones, grass, leaves and feathers, 

 until it becomes as bulky as a Crow's nest, and is placed in the 

 main forks of a tree in the borders of the forest, about thirty 

 feet from the ground. They lay. from two to five dirty white 

 eggs, over which are scattered blotches of reddish-brown. 



It is not an aggressive species ordinarily, but if wounded 

 and at bay, or in the defence of its young, it has no superior, 

 and few peers for courage and persistence. It is fairly com- 

 mon from the borders of Iowa to Lake Superior. Rare in the 

 northwestern sections of the State. 



