the form of offal, for in severe weather when the gruuiul 

 is covei\-a with snow and when food is scarce, the Red- 

 shouldered Hawk will devour dead chickens which have been 

 thrown out from the yard, as well as other refuse found on 

 llie cumpoht heaps or in the vicinity of slaughter houses. 

 At such limes the writer has often caplureif specimens of this 

 hawk, as well as of crows, blue jays, red and flying squirrels, 

 in sttel traps set near a piece of chicken, rabbit or beef 

 fastened in a tree " 



EATS FROGS AND INSECTS. 



.Xullall itmarks that this hawk lives priucipally on 

 frogs, and probably insects and craw-fish in the wintei-. 

 Gentry tells ns I hat the food of the young consists of 

 fragments of qnadrupeds, besides an immense number 

 of 3'oung grasshoppers and beetles. In my examina- 

 tions of fifty-seven of these hawk.s wiiich have been 

 captnred in Pennsylvania, forty-three showed tteldr 

 mice, some few other small quadrupeds, grasshoppers 

 and insects, mostly beetles; nine revealed frogs and in- 

 sects; two, small birds, remains of small mammals and 

 a few beetles; two, snakes and portions of frogs. Tin' 

 gizzard of one bird contained a few hairs of a field- 

 mouse and some long black hair which appeared vevy 

 much like lliat of a skunk. The bird on dissection 

 gave a very decided odor of skunlc. Tn two of these 

 ha^Nks, shot in Florida. I found in one jiortions of a 

 small raltish, and in the othei- remains of a small 

 m.aiiimal and some few coleoptermis inserts theetj.'s). 



