Red- Shouldered Hawk. 261 



and from another have counted out on the ground seven 

 entire bodies. A game bird or chicken now and then, 

 but red squirrels for every-day bill-of-fare. Mousing,' 

 Master Buteo will go. And frogging, too, for I have sev- 

 eral times surprised him in muddy sloughs in the woods, 

 and field collectors often are called to notice the black mud 

 on fresh hawks' eggs. Given then a great food supply, and 

 the species that follow it will be abundant. Over the 

 grove of second growths to the left of Love Lane, last 

 spring, I saw a pair of red-shouldered hawks hovering 

 for days in succession. 1 knew they were not breeding 

 in the patch, as they had not done so in former years, 

 and there were but three old crows' nests, very low down. 

 But to be very sure, I examined the grove repeatedly 

 with care, and found it to be alive with red squirrels. In 

 one apple-tree hole was a litter of six; in the butt of an 

 oak were five with eyes unopened, and the conspicuous 

 outside nests were many. A barred owl clung to the 

 top of a white birch with one claw, and was tearing away 

 at a squirrel's new domed nest with the other claw. The 

 hawks had their nest with two young in the swamp beyond, 

 and this grove was their handy larder, and very noisy 

 they were over their daily grace before meat."* 



Dr. Fisher, whose careful investigations have placed 

 the rapacious birds of America in their true character 

 before the world, says: "The diet of the red-shouldered 

 hawk is probably more varied than that of most other 

 birds of prey. For example, the writer has found in the 

 stomachs of the difierent individuals which have come 

 under his notice the remains of mammals, birds, snakes, 

 frogs, fishes, insects, centipedes, spiders, crawfish, earth- 

 worms, and snails, which represent eleven classes of ani- 

 mal life. This hawk is very fond of frogs, and although 

 these batrachians are mentioned by Audubon and other 

 writers as forming a very considerable portion of their 

 sustenance, yet mice furnish fully sixty-five per cent, of 

 their food." The last statement should cause the enemies 

 of this hawk to reflect before killing it mercilessly at every 

 opportunity, yet the following paragraph is still more 



^Ornithologist and Oologist, Vol. viii., page 17. 



