41 



Smallest of our Raptores are the lit- 

 tle SPARROW HAWKS, — trim little 

 falcons which reach here early in March. 

 For the first few weeks we notice them 

 only as we see them winging their way 

 with their peculiar flight, a rapid beat- 

 ing of the wings followed by a short 

 sail, over fields. Towards the end of 

 April, while selecting their partners or 

 discussing the selection of nesting 

 sites, they are very noisy, their sharp 

 cries, resembling "killy, killy, killy, 

 etc.." being audible for long distances. 

 They nest in cavities of trees, usually 

 deserted homes of Flickers. The four 

 or five eggs, laid on the bare wood or 

 chips, are cream-colored, speckled and 

 blotched with reddish-brown. The 

 young, like those of all our hawks, are 

 first covered with white down, and re- 

 main in the nest three or four weeks 

 before they are able to leave. These 

 birds live wholly upon mice and insects, 

 chiefly grasshoppers. instances of their 

 capturing small birds are quite rare. 



of the prowess of the Eagle. The GOL#^.N E.\GT.F 

 western species which sometimes straggles to our eastern 

 mountains^ is far more courageous than the eastern bird 

 and rarely devours prey not caught by his own efforts. 



Among our useful Hawks may be mentioned the 

 BROAD-WIXGED, a bird of medium size, with rather 

 broad, rounded wings, short tail and handsomely barred 

 under parts; the RED-SHOULDERED HAWK, adults of 

 which have the under parts very heavily barred with rufous, 

 the shoulders reddish-brown and the tail and primaries 

 sharply barred with black and white; and the RED- 

 TAILED HAWK, which in adult plumage have the whole 

 tail a bright rufous, with or without a subterminal narrow 

 black band. These three species are quite common in and 

 around the edges of woodland, but rarely will more than 

 one pair of one species be found in the same woods. 



Our only habitually destructive species are GOSHAWKS, 

 handsome birds with blue-gray backs and under parts finely 

 waved with black lines, which come from their northern 

 homes to pass the winter here. Their food is of grouse 

 and other game birds, poultry, rabbits, etc. They are so 

 bold at times that they will dash down and carry off a 

 fowl from a flock which the owner is feeding in his yard ; 



