\QQ Cameron, The Ferruginous Rough-leg. [iU)ril 



To the best of my knowledge this species never attempts to take 

 poultry of any kind, and my own observations are strongly con- 

 firmed by Mr. W. P. Sullivan, for sixteen years manager of Mr. 

 Milner's beautiful Square Butte Ranch, where these hawks have 

 always been protected on account of the numerous gophers ( Thom- 

 omys) which they destroy. As above narrated, several pair breed 

 annually upon the ranch, and are constantly flying around the 

 buildings, yet no chickens have ever been molested. Mr. Sullivan, 

 who is a close observer of nature, considers that, after the young 

 are flown in the fall, these hawks subsist chiefly upon gophers, and 

 he has described to me (in lit.) their method of capturing them as 

 follows : — 



" I have watched the hawks often through glasses in our alfalfa 

 field after the first crop has been taken off. The pocket gophers 

 get pretty busy tunnelling, and pushing all the loose, damp earth 

 up in piles on the surface. The hawks fly slowly over the field 

 until they discover a fresh pile of damp earth. Here they will alight 

 softly, and wait for the gopher to push close to the surface. They 

 will then spread their wings, and, rising a few feet in the air, come 

 down stiff-legged into the loose earth when the gopher is transfixed 

 and brought out. I have seen them eat the gopher where caught, 

 and at other times carry it away." 



In the summer of 1903, about an acre of ground at the Square 

 Butte Ranch was cpvered with piles of building material, such as 

 lumber, posts, and heavy shed timbers which had been collected 

 there the previous year. Numbers of cotton-tail rabbits lived 

 under these piles, and provided an occasional meal both for the 

 hawks and for the ranch cat, which was a female tabby. On a 

 certain day Mr. Milner, owner of the ranch, happened to be engaged 

 in conversation with Mr. Sullivan near a pile of posts upon which 

 the cat was basking in the sun with one eye open for a chance rabbit 

 as usual. A Ferruginous Rough-leg, with nestlings in the white 

 cliffs, was gyrating low over the buildings, but neither the gentle- 

 men nor the cat took particular notice of this familiar sight. Both 

 men were, however, startled by a loud whirring noise, when to their 

 intense surprise they saw that the hawk had lifted the now be- 

 wildered and struggling cat from her couch on the posts and was 

 slowly bearing her aloft. It seemed at first to the astonished 



