41 (> ShKBKAN, Yes >parrow Hawk. [july 



to the nest with scarcely the smallest feather remaining on them. 

 Sometimes she skinned the ground squirrels, the nestlings ate the 

 skins when she omitted the operation. The meadow mice were not 

 skinned, but she always spent several minutes plucking out the 

 hair, nevertheless much remained when taken to the nest. After 

 she had snatched the prey from her mate, she usually uttered 

 whine-like screams for two or three minutes before beginning her 

 work on it. Crotches or peeling hark on the tree afforded hot- 

 three or four plaees suitable for her flaying. In moving from place 

 to plaee she sometimes carried the prey in her talons, hut generally 

 in her beak, and always thus when she tlew from tree to nest. This 

 flight she never made directly from her skinning places, but always 

 descended to the lower branches of the willow by a series of short 

 flights before starting for the nest: this she never did sit long as she 

 saw herself watched. 



More vociferous screams than usual greeted my first appearance 

 on the morning of June 28, awakening suspicions which were con- 

 tinued by a visit to the nest, and finding there that Moses had his 

 head out of the entrance hole. After that hour one fledgling or 

 another sat in the hole most of the time, shutting out the light and 

 the fresh air. The weather was very hot. and the tiest exceedingly 

 filthy, yet that it was still "home, sweet home.'" to the hawklets 

 was attested by the alacrity with which they hopped into it when 

 held before the door. Jeremiah, the first horn, marked by a red 

 string on his foot, left the nest in the forenoon of June 80. some time 

 between a quarter past eight o'clock and noon; and Ruth followed 

 early the next morning. Frantic screams of the mother attended 

 my search for Ruth. Very unlike the crouching, hustling, menacing 

 creature oi the previous evening was the very erect and slim little 

 hird found perching in a willow sapling about fifty feet from the 

 nest: and it was a gentle, farewell nibble that she gave the extended 

 linger. Moses left the nest early in the morning of July 2. and 

 Jeaebel between five o'clock and half past that hour of the succeed- 

 ing morning. 



For a week the Hawks, old and young, staid about their tree. 

 On the morning of July 11, the other birds sang a halleluiah chorus 

 in the dead willow, that had been held by the Hawks for ninety- 

 nine (.lays: and no one could help wishing that the last had been 



