Sparrow Hawk. 279 



often appropriated by these falcons. Some of them even 

 go 80 far as to use the holes in banks and cliffs excavated 

 by the kingfishers, though such nesting is unusual. 



The sparrow hawks have very limited instincts for 

 building. They seldom make a nest in the ready-made 

 cavity they select, but deposit their eggs on the bare wood 

 or debris at the bottom of the excavation. However, in 

 the recess occupied by the pair inhabiting the cupola of 

 the school building, the eggs were laid on a flat nest of 

 dried grass; but I am unable to assert whether the hawks 

 or previous occupants carried in the material, though it 

 looked like the work of a previous year. It was certainly 

 not the work of the flickers that excavated the entrance, 

 for they are not bred to that sort of thing. I am of the 

 opinion tbat a pair of these hawks, who occupied the re- 

 cess in a former season, saw the need of a slight bed at 

 least, as the eggs would roll about on the joist if no nest 

 had been prepared. 



The usual nest complement is five eggs, often only four, 

 and rarely six. Their ground color is a shade of white, 

 either bufly or creamy or reddish, variously marked and 

 blotched with shades of brown. They are 1.50 to 1.20 in 

 length, and 1.17 to 1.05 in width, in inches, these dimen- 

 sions giving them a sub-spherical form. The first sets of 

 eggs are generally deposited in this locality by the 25th 

 of April. My journal records a set of five eggs found in 

 the cavity of the cupola on April 24, 1894, somewhat in- 

 cubated; a set of five fresh eggs found May 7, 1894, in a 

 natural cavity, twenty-five feet from the ground, in a 

 branch of a live elm; on May 17, 1894, a set of six fresh 

 eggs in a flicker's hole, eighteen feet from the ground, in 

 an isolated dead stub, in a cleared area bordering woods 

 along a creek; and May 9, 1895, a set of five fresh eggs in 

 a deserted cavity made by flickers, sixty feet from the 

 ground, in a branch of a live elm. 



Though the sparrow hawks are easily pleased in the 

 choice of their nesting sites, they are in no hurry to begin 

 the cares of a family, even after their future home is se- 

 lected. They commonly dally about the place for a week 

 or more, after their choice is made, before any eggs are 

 deposited. They spend a good share of their time in the 



