3IO Bird Studies. 



This bird had formerly a much wider distribution than at present. It 

 was found late in the last century and in the early part of the present one, as 

 far north as North Carolina, and south to Texas on the coast, and in the in- 

 terior up the Mississippi Valley to Missouri, Southern Illinois, and Southern 

 Indiana. It is now restricted to the lower Mississippi Valley and the Gulf 

 States, being probably most abundant in Western Florida, especially in the 

 great cypress swamps, southwest of Lake Okeechobee, and in the vicinity 

 of St. Marks, in the northwestern part of the State. 



The birds nest in characteristic Woodpecker fashion, and lay white eggs. 

 These are about an inch and two fifths long by about an inch in width. 



On the 17th of March, 1887, I found near Tarpon Springs, Florida, a 

 nest containing a single young one, presumably about ten days old. The hole 

 for this nest was excavated in a cypress about forty feet from the ground, 

 the entrance was oval, one diameter being about three inches and a half, the 

 other four inches and a half. The hole was some fourteen inches deep, and 

 had apparently been used for a breeding place before. 



The Marsh Hawk is a long slimly built hawk, about twenty-one inches 



from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail. You will see the birds coursing 



over meadows and fields, particularly in the spring and 



Marsh Hawk. £^u ^^^ ^ large white patch just above the roots of the 



Circus hudsonius (Linn.). ., -it i i i i • i i 11 



tail will serve as a badge b)- which they may be known in 

 any plumage, even at a long distance. 



The adult male is bluish gray above, except for the white spot on the 

 rump ; the throat and upper breast are bluish gray. The rest of the lower parts 

 are white, more or less barred and spotted with light reddish brown. The tail 

 is gray barred indefinitely with dusky or blackish. The female is dusky above, 

 the head, neck, and breast streaked with rusty brown. The shoulders are 

 marked and spotted with a similar shade. The white rump spot is much the 

 same as in the male. The tail feathers are barred with ash and dusk)- on the 

 two middle ones, and with rusty buff and dusky brown or black on the re- 

 maining ones. The prevailing color below is rusty buff, streaked on the 

 lower neck and breast, and much more finely and definitely striped on the 

 sides, flanks, and belly with dusk)- and rust)- brown. The eyes are yellow, 

 varying from straw color to orange. Immature birds are darker and much 

 more rusty above, and clearer almost unmarked rusty below. They, too, 

 have the clear white rump patch. 



