THE AUK: 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 

 ORNITHOLOGY. 



Vol. xxx. April, 1913. No. 2 



NOTES ON SWAINSON'S HAWK (BUTEO SWAIKSOXI) 

 IX MONTANA. 



BY E. S. CAMERON. 

 I. NESTIXf;. 



Some twelve years ago Swainson's Hawk, or the Common 

 American Buzzard, was one of the commonest birds breeding in 

 eastern Montana, but has, since then, been greatly reduced in 

 numbers. At the period mentioned, despite incessant persecu- 

 tion, half a dozen inhabited nests might easily be found during any 

 year in my own neighborhood alone; but at the present time the 

 numerous unoccupied nests in the white ash and cottonwood trees, 

 to which their dead or disheartened owners have never returned, 

 bear pathetic testimony to the gradual disappearance of this hawk 

 as a nesting species. Swainson's Buzzard is locally called 'Hen 

 Hawk,' yet the term is a complete misnomer, for in my twenty - 

 t h ice years' experience with the bird I have never observed it to take 

 poultry of any kind, nor have I obtained the slightest evidence that 

 it ever does so. However, if you give a dog a bad name you may 

 hang him, and the unfortunate buzzard, being credited with the 

 misdeeds of the Prairie Falcon, Goshawk, or Harrier, is in a like 

 case. Here, at all events, the parent birds are shot and the young 

 ruthlessly stoned on sight. As I have already stated in 'The Auk' 

 (Vol. XXV, ]». 468) Swainson's Hawk is often most indiscreet 

 in its choice of a building site, selecting a low tree by the roadside, 



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