oe a 
500 THE COOPER HAWK. 
chickens), we will let the law take its course in the case of this culprit. The 
Cooper Hawk is guilty. He is the marauder. He is le bell diable sans merci. 
Songsters are his delight (gastronomic) and Wood Warblers he regards as 
mere toothsome dainties. Poor devil! We will turn our backs while the 
guillotine falls. 
One never gets a clearer insight into the possibilities of cruel rapacity 
than when a Cooper Hawk comes dashing up into a thicket where you have 
been ogling Sparrows, and baffled of his victim, stands for a moment panting 
in his rage, and flashing malevolence from a blood-red eye. It is as tho an 
emissary of the nether world had broken from cover; and one feels all the 
virtue of a just cause in putting him to death. 
Birds form eighty per cent of Cooper Hawk's food, and young chickens 
are counted in whenever occasion offers. Game birds are occasionally cap- 
tured, for the Cooper Hawk is a fearless brigand; but when the birds are 
scarce he descends to rabbits, gophers, mice, grasshoppers, crickets, and similar 
small quarry. Fortunately, the Cooper Hawk is not common in Washington, 
very much less so than the Sharp-shinned; it is so rare, indeed, that it does 
not figure prominently among the forces destructive to bird life. 
Having chosen a nesting site, the Cooper Hawk becomes quite attached 
to the locality ; and if undisturbed will return year after year. He haunts the 
vicinity like an unquiet ghost, and may be heard oftener than seen, voicing his 
unrest in querulous notes, kek, kek, kek, kek, kek, kek, kek, kek. Sometimes 
curiosity gets the better of caution and he throws a few circles in the open, 
swapping confidences, as it were, with the bird-man; and in return for the few 
sharp glances he bends downward, affords a full view of his short, rounded 
wings and his long, rounded tail. One is impressed rather with the bird's 
ease and nonchalance than with its swiftness in flight; but it is a master at 
checking and tacking, so that few of the smaller birds are a match for it in 
the open air, and not all of them in the mazes of the forest, which the Hawk 
threads relentlessly. 
In nesting, the bird not infrequently avails itself of an old Crow’s nest, 
taking pains to fill up the nesting hollow with twigs, and adding a few twigs 
yearly in a desultory way. Occasionally it appears to construct quite preten- 
tious nests of its own, and in the absence of trees is said to build upon the 
ground, 
The only records for western Washington are of two nests with young, 
located in June, 1904, by Mr. Ed. L. Currier, of Tacoma; and one containing 
five fresh eggs taken May 30, 1905, by Messrs. C. W. and J. H. Bowles. In 
the last-named instance the nest bore evidence of occupation for many years. 
It was placed at a height of 70 feet in a large fir tree, surrounded by a dense 
growth of firs and maples, on low moist ground. The lining consisted of 
freshly-broken fir twigs to which the green needles still clung. 
