198 



General Notes. [^^^^ 



hawk boarded an outward bound ship, and kept with it till the California 

 coast was sighted when it flew to land. During the voyage it lived on 

 small birds which it left the ship to catch. 



Can it be that the Hawaiian Hawk has learned of the spring and fall 

 flights of plover, akekeke and other birds that migrate to and from the 

 islands, and that it deliberately makes excursions to sea to capture them ? 

 Or are these two cases merely coincidences? 



The writer has studied the flight of the Hawaiian Hawk on manv 

 occasions, and he does not for one moment believe in its ability to 

 capture flving quarry. If the bird the hawk was eating when shot was 

 actually a plover it must have been seized when on the water — evidence, 

 so far as it goes, tending to prove that the plover sometimes rests on 

 the ocean in its passages between the American and the Hawaiian coasts. 



That the ducks occasionally rest on the ocean in their migrations, Mr. 

 Andrews is able to state positively, as he saw a pair settle contentedly on 

 the ocean a thousand miles from land as if for a long rest. — H. W. Hen- 

 SHAW, Hilo, Haivaii. 



Unusual Nesting Date of the Barn Owl {Sfrix pratincola). — During the 

 fall and earh- winter of 1900 several Barn Owls established a residence in 

 two or three large red oaks in our back yard. These trees were peculiarly 

 fitted for such birds, as the ravages of time and the elements had produced 

 several very large cavities in each tree. I had watched the birds, as best I 

 could, with much interest. They were active only after nightfall. I 

 expected to find a set of eggs in February. The nights were made hideous 

 with their stentorian notes and I began to i-egard them as something of 

 a nuisance but bore in mind the probability of a set of eggs entirely new 

 to my collection, so I suffered the birds to remain unmolested. We have 

 a number of domestic pigeons and their houses stood very close to the 

 trees mentioned, but experience had shown the owls to be perfectly harm- 

 less and I had nothing to fear from this source. However, a pair of 

 pigeons had nested for some inonths in a large cavity in one of the trees, 

 from which they were driven by a pair of owls. This circumstance led 

 me to look with more confident hope for a set in February. But my 

 hopes were blasted. So I then thought it necessary to remove the trees ; 

 their dying condition demanded this course. They were cut on the loth 

 day of December, 1900, and on the 12th the woodmen while cutting the 

 trees into sections found five eggs in the cavity heretofore referred to as 

 the erst-while home of the pair of pigeons. Three of the eggs were 

 irremediably cracked, the othei-s badly so. They must have totally 

 perished but for the mass of decayed vegetation, the accumulation of 

 years, in the bottom of the hollow. This cavity was upwards of eighteen 

 feet from the ground, about two feet in circumference, with a depth of 

 three feet, and was on the north side of the tree, which stood directly 

 south of the back porch and not more than thirty feet therefrom. One 

 egg was fresh, two were infertile, and two were slightly incubated. I 



