THE NEW SPORT OF “HAWKING 
281 
rebuilding' this nest. It was not until the twenty-fifth of May 
that I returned, in a pouring rain. As I expected, the bird 
was on the nest, her head raised to watch the intruders. A 
blow on the trunk made her flap slowly off. She alighted in 
a neighboring tree, and kept uttering her shrill, high-pitched, 
whistling scream, flying now and then to circle a bit, and 
alight in another place, never far from home. I found that 
the nest was the usual rude structure, a layer of sticks 
added to the squirrels’ nest, and a lining of leaves and bark, 
in which lay two of the most beautiful eggs I had ever seen, 
the white background being heavily blotched with rich 
brown, giving the eggs a strong resemblance to those of the 
Sharp-shinned Hawk, except for their larger size. The whole 
scene — the handsome eggs, the hovering bird, the woods 
dark in the storm, and the wild, thundering cataract close by 
— takes its place in my memory as one of uncommon 
grandeur. 
Few happenings in “hawking” please me more than 
finding the nest of the little Sharp-shinned Hawk. It is 
a neat structure of clean new twigs, without any lining 
whatever, usually well up a slender evergreen tree of some 
sort, in the woods. The birds are very jealous of intrusion, 
and will sometimes thus betray the vicinity of the nest. One 
thirteenth of May as I passed through a grove of young 
pines with a fellow naturalist, a pair of these little hawks set 
up a tremendous outcry, and even swooped at us, as we 
went peacefully along the cart-path. This set us to search¬ 
ing, and very soon I climbed to the nest, and found it com¬ 
pleted, the eggs not yet laid. Two weeks later I took the 
beautiful set of four, despite the angry dashes of the mother, 
and much to the joy of the farmer whose chicken-yard, 
close by, had been almost depopulated by the pestiferous 
little raptors. 
