I/O Cameron \ s s son's Hawk, [April 



eggs our is infertile, and may be found in a perfectly intact state 

 after the young are flown, The color of the eggs is variable, but 

 in all sets of three that 1 have soon, one egg has been entirety white, 

 In a single instance, two of the three eggs were unmarked, greenish 

 white. Some of the other eggs in the eight nests were blotched 

 with chestnut or umber brown, the remainder being merely flecked 

 with scattered dots oi thoso colors. 1 no\er found but one heavily 

 marked egg, and that had the whole ground of its upper half 

 almost completely obscured by umber brown. The first part oi 

 June is the usual time to find Swainson's Hawk sitting on > 

 but that depends largely on the weather, 1 have soon an earihj 

 incubating bird on May 7. and a lato one on June 27. The time 

 oi incubation is about twenty-five days, but as with the Marsh 

 Hawk. Hoot Owl, etc., the young are often hatched at intervals, 

 so that the oldost may bo full-fledged while the youngest is in the 

 fluffy stage. The cock bin! will occasionally sit upon the eggs, and 

 1 have twioo flushed him from them; but, in my experience, such 

 notion is mmsnal. as the male is generally absent foraging for the 

 female. There are recorded instances of Swainson's Hawk occupy- 

 ing the deserted nests of other birds, but all the pairs which 1 

 observed built their own nests, and declined to appropriate old 

 nests of their own species, lit one case, where a pair were shot 

 at the nest, a second pair built another nest exactly above the th-st 

 in a succeeding year. This appeared to mo to bo a curious coinci- 

 dence, and it was a no loss curious sight to see the two great nests, 

 one above the other, in a small ash tree. If bereft of all their eggs, 

 or nestlings, the discouraged hawks desert that nest forever; but. 

 when deprived of the eggs only, they construct a now abode in 

 which the female lays again. Early in May. 1906, a shepherd 

 robbed a Bustard's nest in a cottonwood of the three eggs, ami the 

 Hawks built a now one in a similar nearby tree. On June 1 the 

 pertinacious hen-bird again sat upon three eggs, which were subse- 

 quently unmolested, In this respect thoso hawks differ from a 

 pair of Golden Eagles, which will never forsake an established 

 eyrie save upon the death of one of them. 



OI the fourteen nests which I have kept under observation at 

 different times, tun one received such dose attention as a nest 

 built early in June, 1908, in a distant ranch pasture. This was not 



