272 
WILD WINGS 
There was nothing to do but to beat through the tract 
systematically, and I went at it with a will. Back and forth, 
round and round, I plodded. I was soaked by falling into 
bog-holes, and perspiration ran in rivers. At the end of three 
hours I was deliberating an inglorious surrender, when sud¬ 
denly from the grass and bushes about ten feet from me, a 
little to one side, up sprang the female Marsh Hawk. What 
a fuss she made, Hying back and forth over me within easv 
gunshot, and keeping up an incessant screaming and cack¬ 
ling. I hastened forward. The grass was matted down on 
the south side of two small larches in a rather open spot. 
The bird had built a slovenly nest of coarse weed-stems and 
grass, flat on the ground. It contained two dirty-white eggs, 
unspotted, the set being still incomplete. 
Next season I did not get to the swamp till May twenty- 
ninth. I had another long search, until hnally, as I was away 
down at the other end of the tract, the female began to fly 
around in evident anxiety. It was for a time a game of “ hot 
or cold.” When the hawk relaxed her efforts, I knew I was 
on the wrong track, and as she grew more excited, I knew 
I was making progress. At length I came upon a nest simi¬ 
lar to the first, containing five young, in various stages of 
growth, one apparently just hatched, and the oldest several 
times as large ; the eggs must have been laid by the end 
of April. This time Mrs. Hawk fairly outdid herself. I had 
brought a youth with me to help patrol the swamp, and 
he really thought the bird would scratch his eyes out. She 
dived frantically at our heads, scratching at us with her 
claws. Once or twice she actually struck me. Indeed, I know 
of a man who was driven out of a berry-pasture by one of 
these hawks, which doubtless had young in the bushes. Next 
year my harriers nested again near where I first found them, 
and there were five fresh eggs on the thirtieth of April. 
