Vol. XIII Peabody, ]Vestin2- of K rider's Hawk. I C 



iSqS J ° ■' ^ 



shaped than pyriform; the cinnamon spots a little larger and more 

 scattered, thickest, however, at apex. No. 2, attenuate oval, 2.50x1.77; 

 scattered spots and scrawls of cinnamon over the entire surface, with a 

 delicate marbled circlet about the smaller end, where, also, a few bright 

 spots. 



The kinship between this and the preceding set is very evident. 

 The female remained near the nest, but her mate was for some 

 time invisible. A large blackish hawk (Western Rough-leg?) 

 circling high above, long watched the female, whose mate, as 

 typically colored as herself, presently appeared. 



Set VII. —Taken for me at Lake Crystal, Minn., April 30, 1894, in a 

 dense wood bordering a lake. Nest in a fairly large black walnut (a tree 

 quite rare in Minnesota) not half way up, close to the trunk, not large, 

 of coarse sticks, lined with bark-shreds and . other fine substances. 

 Identification well established. Incubation, none. Two eggs: No. i, 

 rounded, ovate, 2.47x1.88; white, with a few faint, livid and ferruginous 

 markings. A spirally streaked cap of cinnamon-lilac at small end, the 

 streaks not meeting at point. No. 2, nearly sub-spherical, 2.47x1.90. 

 Blotches of lilac tinted with cinnamon, massed at apex. A few scattered 

 spots of the same on remainder of the surface. Thus an exquisitely 

 marked and colored set, the eggs very strikingly unlike. 



Set VIII. — On the fifth of May, 1894, I explored the timbered 

 country between Minneopa, near Mankato, and Lake Crystal. 

 Though the region was highly favorable, not a single Buteo nest 

 was found. Reaching the lake at nightfall, I passed rapidly 

 through the singularly venerable belt of ancient, gnarled white 

 oaks bordering the lake, and, just before dark, I stood in an open 

 spot two miles from nest VII, at the base of a great isolated 

 white oak, "feathered to the toes," in which, near the top, in a 

 nearly vertical main branch, was a very large nest. After a half 

 dozen raps with my spur, a hawk reluctantly spread her wings 

 and sailed into the darkness. Identification was impossible. 

 A ridiculously easy climb of seventy-five feet, without spurs, 

 revealed, to my chagrin, but a single egg lying in the large nest- 

 hollow, which was lined with bark-strips and a single corn-cob. 

 On the edge of the nest lay the head and shoulders of a striped 

 gopher. The egg proved fresh. June 9, the nest was revisited 

 at daybreak. The female very reluctantly left the nest, and was 

 clearly seen. Both birds moved noisily about. The nest, 

 recently decked with leafy twigs and flecked with down, con- 



