26 o 
WILD WINGS 
activity, driving-, tramping, climbing, amid the wildest wood¬ 
land tracts and forests, always on the lookout, every nerve 
and sense attuned. So much woodcraft and knowledge 
of the wild things’ habits is involved that success gives 
a splendid satisfaction. Having found the nest, one may 
climb the tall tree, — often at some risk, — examine, and 
photograph the nest, eggs, and young, and, most difficult 
of all, the parent birds, and subsequently study their habits. 
The ancient “ hawking,” where people rode around with 
a tame hawk or falcon and let it fly at a poor lumbering 
heron, to see it torn to pieces, was no sport at all, in com- 
|3arison. 
When living in southeastern Massachusetts I was accus¬ 
tomed to hnd over thirty nests of hawks and owls — mostly 
the former, and not including the colonizing Ospreys — each 
season. Each nest involved a separate hunt, and it meant 
hundreds of miles of rough exploration, but it was perfectly 
splendid sport. 
My method of ferreting out the hawks of a given territorv 
is to begin in late autumn, when the leaves have fallen, and 
explore the region thoroughlv, noting especiall-v the groves 
or tracts of large timber and the presences of old nests — 
platforms of sticks in the forks of tall trees. These trips 
serve for needed outing and exercise all winter. A few of the 
hawks remain about their old haunts throughout the vear, 
and in early spring the absentees return. The continued 
presence of hawks in or about certain woodland tracts is 
a good clue, especially if they can be detected carrying 
building material. 
When the nesting-season arrives, I visit the likely spots, 
and with an opera-glass criticallv examine everv nest in sight. 
Unlike the owls, hawks more commonlv build their own nests, 
though they frequently add to an old one, or even use a leafy 
