506 OUNITIIOLOGV. 



notes of B. liitraltts, but less loud and more nioiiotouous. Three days 

 afterward this family was again met with, and the three remaining young 

 immediately secured; but the parent birds were not so easily killed, for, 

 although they received several charges of dust shot, as they courageously 

 flew about us, they were far touglur th.in tlu-ir yt)ung. Tlie female was 

 brought down hrst, when the male only increased in courage and clamor, 

 until he, too, was killed. 



On the Truckee Keservation a nest of this species was fomid in a 

 large cotton-wood tree, and the female (No. 771) shot from it. This nest 

 was Ijuilt near the extremity of a large drooping branch, and was conse- 

 quently inaccessible; by clind.>ing above it, however, the eggs, two in num- 

 ber, could be seen, but it was found impossible, under the circumstances, 

 to secure them. Manv other nests were discovered in this locality, but 

 they were in the ordinary position, viz, in a fork of a tall tree. In Parley's 

 Park, on tlie Wahsatch Jlountains, Swainson's Ilawk was common, and 

 'many nests were found among the scrub-oaks on the slopes or on small 

 aspens on the sides of the ravines. 'I'licir ]iosition was always low down, 

 often merely a few feet from the ground, and easily reached without climb- 

 ing. In one of these nests, found Jnly 2d, was a single young one, 

 which, although yet covered with snow-white cottony down, was savagely 

 tearino- at a dead weasel whicli had been carried to the nest by the old 

 birds, both of which were killed; of these, the male is a i-emarkably light- 

 colored example, tlie entire lower parts, including the under side of the 

 ■wings, being pure white, the breast covered by a broad patch of uniform 

 cinnamon-rufous, while the female,- on the other hand, is one of the darkest 

 examples of the species we ever saw, being of a uniform sooty-black, only 

 the under tail coverts bfcing slightly barred with whitish. 



The food of this Hawk is by no means coniined to snudl niannnals 

 and birds, but during the flights of the g-rasshoppers, which so often devas- 

 tate the fields of Utah and other ])ortions of the West, they keep continu- 

 ally gorged on these insects; and at one season we found them living 

 chiefly on the large cricket so common in tlie .Salt Lake Valley. On the 

 31st of May, 18G9, at Salt Lake City, we noticed ;i uuinl)er of these Hawks 

 on the ground, where they remained most of the time quiet, but every now 



