74 THE HAWKS AND OWLS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the lowest order. (Appendix JJ Ann. Kept, of the Chief of Engineers 

 U. S. A. for 1876, pp. 263, 264.) 



The following by Mr. Robert Ridgway relates to the food of this hawk 

 in Utah : " We found it [the nest] so filled with the accumulated remains 

 of animals carried to the young that scarcely auy depression was notice- 

 able on the top, the decomposing rubbish consisting of bones and other 

 remnants of small hares {Lepas artemisia), ground squirrels {Spenno- 

 phUus lateralis, *S'. harrisi, and Tamias quadrivittatus), and, strange to 

 say, a full-grown young Sparrow Hawk {Falco sparverius). * * * 

 In one of these nests, found July 2, was a single young one, which, 

 although yet covered with snow-white cottony down, was savagely 

 tearing at a dead weasel which had been carried to the nest by the old 

 birds, both of which were killed ; * * * the food of this Hawk is 

 by no means confined to small mammals and birds, but during the 

 flights of the grasshoppers, which so often devastate the fields of Utah 

 and other portions of the West, they keep contiinuilly gorged on these 

 insects; and at one season we found them living chiefly on the large 

 cricket so common in Salt Lake Valley. On the 31st of May, 1869, at 

 Salt Lake City, we noticed a number of these hawks on the ground, where 

 they remained most of the time quiet, but every now and then they 

 would raise their wings and hop briskly in i>ursuit of some object, which 

 at the distance, we could not distinguish. Cautiously ajjproaching 

 them, four were shot during the forenoon; they would not allow us to 

 walk to within gunshot, but after flying for a few minutes would some- 

 times return toward us, and, passing by, give us a fair (►i)portunity for 

 wingshots. Upon dissecticm, the stomachs of thesespeciiueiis were found 

 to be filled entirely with the large crickets mentioned above." (U. S. 

 Geo!. Explor. of the 40th Paral., King, vol. iv, 1877, pp. 585-587.) 



Mr. E. W. Nelson, speaking of the food of this hawk in Ahiska, says: 

 "He [Dr. Ball] found the bones of rabbits, squirrels, mice, and dncks, 

 and even part of a whitefish,in the vicinity of their nests, showing that 

 they are ready to prey upon anytliing that tails in their way." (Rept. 

 Nat. Hist. Collections in Alaska, 1887, p. 142.) 



Dr. Coues gives the following information on the food: "The qnarry 

 of Swainson's buzzard is of a very humble nature. I never saw one 

 stoop upon a water-fowl or grouse, and though they probably strike 

 rabbits, like the red-tails, their prey is ordinarily nothing larger than 

 gophers. * * * I scarcely think they are smart enough to catch 

 birds very often. I saw one make the attemxit on a lark bunting. 

 * * * But I question whether, after all, insects do not furnish tlieir 

 principal subsistence. Those I shot after midsummer all had their 

 craws stuffed with grasshoppers." (Amer. Nat., vol. Viii, 1874, p. 285, 

 286.) 



The benefit it does to the farmer by destroying vast numbers of 

 gophers probably does not exceed th^t which it does in clearing hij* 

 fields of noxious insects, notably grasshoppers and crickets. 



