178 NOTES ON THE 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Wings and tail long, the latter deeply forked. Head and 

 neck, under wing coverts, secondary quills at their bases, and 

 entire under parts white; back, wings and tail black, with a 

 metallic lustre; purple on the wing coverts and back; green 

 and blue on the other parts; tarsi and toes greenish- blue; bill 

 horn color. As with most hawks, the male is the smaller. 



Length, (of female), 23 to 25; wing, 16 to 17.50; tail, 14. 



Habitat, Southern United States and north to Minnesota. 



CIRCUS HUDSONIUS (L. ). (331). 

 MARSH HAWK. 



This is undeniably the most abundant of the hawks which 

 visit the State, arriving often before the ice has entirely disap- 

 peared from the lakes. About the 20th of March the avaunt 

 couriers of the species may be seen solitarily reconnoitering the 

 marshes, but an unfavorable change in the meteorological con- 

 ditions may send them away for a few days, to return next time 

 in greater numbers. Late in April incubation is entered upon. 

 Their favorite nesting places are in sedgy, marshy meadows, 

 that have bunches, or tussocks of shrub-willows, in the center 

 of which they build a somewhat bulky nest of grass, in which 

 they lay four to live dingy bluish-white eggs. When the young 

 are sufiiciently advanced, they make short pedestrian excur- 

 sions in the immediate vicinity of the nest, before the wings 

 are sufficiently developed for them to take to flight, under 

 which circumstances the solicitude of the parents is manifestly 

 very great. To one acquainted with the habits of the species 

 it is not ordinarily difficult to find the nest after the young are 

 partially srrown. Their principal food consists of frogs, and 

 snakes are equally acceptable under all circumstances. They 

 catch occasionlly, a field mouse, moles and ground squirrels. 



Their distribution is universal over the portions of the State 

 where the conditions are favorable to supply them with food. 

 Such a region is characteristically a country of lakes, a con- 

 siderable number of which have subsided, leaving both ex- 

 tensive and frequently limited areas in the most favorable con- 

 dition to make it the Marsh Hawk's paradise in the breeding 

 season. 



And they yield their summer home only when the approach 

 of relentless winter compels them to do so, which, with the 

 hardier birds is not till in the ides of November. Occasionally 



