Red-Tailed Hawk. 257 



tie, he quickly descended in an oblique line. Is it not 

 strange that the larger hawks and owls will submit to be 

 harassed by such arrant cowards as the crows? They 

 appear simply to ignore their assailants, and to rise above 

 such petty annoyances with quiet dignity, disdaining to 

 strike a blow in return, whereas a single demonstration 

 would cause their enemies to turn tail and hurry out of 

 harm's way. 



The red-tailed hawk can commonly be seen perched in 

 the higher trees along the borders of wooded slopes and 

 woods-pastures, usually within reach of creeks or ponds, 

 from whose margins it can pick up an occasional frog or 

 snake. Woods bordering fields and meadows, from which 

 it can procure gophers, moles, and mice, on which it 

 chiefly feeds, are favorite resorts, and in the woods it finds 

 squirrels and other rodents, as well as the birds which 

 it only occasionally surprises and captures. Its slow, 

 steady flight prevents it from pursuing and capturing 

 smaller birds on the wing. When taking its prey from 

 the ground, it often hovers over the intended quarry for 

 a moment with beating wings and extended feet, its body 

 being nearly vertical. It seldom visits the barnyard to 

 prey upon the poultry, but it will pick up a stray fowl 

 which it meets away from its yard and unable to find 

 cover. However, hunger sometimes impels this hawk to 

 show much boldness in seeking to replenish its larder. 



As young rabbits and squirrels are just beginning to 

 shift for themselves when the young red-tails are more 

 pressing in their demands for food, they are the usual 

 prey of the red-tailed hawks at this season. In his "Birds 

 of Kansas," Colonel Goss states that when soaring at high 

 altitudes in the warmer summer days, these hawks will 

 fill their craws with grasshoppers likewise flying high in 

 the air. They seldom eat what they have not themselves 

 captured and killed, though Mr. George P. Elliott, in an 

 article on the red-tailed hawk in Ornithologist and Oologist, 

 Vol. xi., page 35, tells of a pair feeding on the carcass of 

 an animal captured in a farmer's trap, the birds them- 

 selves being taken later by this bait in the trap. The 

 same person, describing their method of capturing squir- 

 rels, says: "When two of the birds are hunting together. 



