RAPTORES. 89 
wings and long tail. It flies more like a swallow than a 
hawk, as it skims over the meadows or sweeps upward and 
away with graceful, easy strokes. It is hardly common 
generally over the state, but is found in considerable num- 
bers in especially favorable places. 
The food of this hawk proves it to be one of the most 
beneficial of all our predaceous birds. It does sometimes 
eat poultry and small birds, but the proportion of these to 
the whole food of mice, snakes, insects, and squirrels is so 
small that it should not count against him. While their 
young were still in the nest I have seen the male return from 
a search over the meadows with a _ good-sized - snake, 
apparently not yet dead, in his talons, and drop it from a 
considerable height to the female who would always catch 
it before it reached the ground. 
The Marsh Hawk is not a common winter resident, even 
in the southern counties, and breeds but rarely if at all there. 
It passes north early in March, reaching the lake shore be- 
fore the first of April, sometimes as early as the last week in 
February. It has not been found in Lorain county after the 
middle of October. 
124. (332.) AccIPITER VELOx (Wils.). 169. 
Sharp-shinned Hawk. 
Synonyms: Accipter fuscus, Falco velox, Falco fuscus, Nisus 
fuscus. 
“Pigeon Hawk.” 
Kirtland, Ohio Geol. Surv., 1838, 161, 178. 
This little hawk is hardly common anywhere in the state, 
but it is everywhere present all the year. While it prefers 
the woods, skulking through the smaller growth low down 
if it has been feeding, it may often be seen flying across the 
open. In flight it may be known from the Sparrow Hawk 
by its larger size, long barred tail, lack of reddish in the 
feathers of the back, and by the fact that it does not hover 
ower the meadows but skulks in the woods. 
It lives principally upon small birds and young poultry 
and English Sparrows, only occasionally killing mice and 
