THE GOSHAWK. 95 
When thus engaged with its prey, it stands nearly upright; and in 
general, when perched, it keeps itself more erect than most species 
of hawks. It is extremely expert at catching snipes on the 
wing; and so well do these birds know their insecurity, that, on its 
approach, they prefer squatting to endeavoring to escape by flight. 
“When the passenger pigeons are abundant in the western 
country, the Goshawk follows their close masses, and subsists 
upon them. A single hawk suffices to spread the greatest terror _ 
among their ranks; and the moment he sweeps towards a flock, 
the whole immediately dive into the deepest woods, where, not- 
withstanding their great speed, the marauder succeeds in clutching 
the fattest. While travelling along the Ohio, I observed several 
hawks of this species in the train of millions of these pigeons. 
Towards the evening of the same day, I saw one abandoning its 
course to give chase to a large flock of Crow Blackbirds ( Quis- 
calus versicolor), then crossing the river. The hawk approached 
them with the swiftness of an arrow, when the blackbirds rushed 
together so closely that the flock looked like a dusky ball passing 
through the air. On reaching the mass, he, with the greatest ease, 
seized first one, then another and another, giving each a squeeze 
with his talons, and suffering it to drop upon the water. In this 
manner he had procured four or five, before the poor birds reached 
the woods, into which they instantly plunged, when he gave up the 
chase, swept over the water in graceful curves, and picked the fruits 
of his industry, carrying each bird singly to the shore. Reader, is 
this instinct or reason ? 
“The nest of the Goshawk is placed on the branches of a tree, 
near the trunk or main stem. It is-of great size, and resembles 
that of our crow, or some species of owl; being constructed of with- 
ered twigs and coarse grass, with a lining of fibrous strips of plants 
resembling hemp. It is, however, much flatter than that of the 
crow. In one I found, in the month of April, three eggs ready to 
be hatched: they were of a dull bluish-white, sparingly spotted 
with light reddish-brown. In another, which I found placed on a 
pine-tree, growing on the eastern rocky bank of the Niagara River, 
a few miles below the great cataract, the lining was formed of 
withered herbaceous plants, with a few feathers: the eggs were 
four in number, of a white color tinged with greenish-blue, large, 
much rounded, and somewhat granulated. 
