260 Cameron, Birds of Custer & Davenport 'Counties, Mont. [julv 



daring, and my wife has taken a screaming pullet from the claws of one 

 of them which found the prize too heavy to lift. 



02. Accipiter velox. Sharp-shinned Hawk. — Tolerably common 

 summer visitor and undoubtedly breeds, although I have not found its 

 nest. For its size it is astonishingly bold. During September, 1904, a 

 Sharp-shinned Hawk frequented my ranch in Dawson County and kept all 

 the birds away which were accustomed to come to the cattle troughs. 

 It would dash at the flocks of Crossbills and the other birds with tremendous 

 velocity, scattering them in all directions. We have even seen the little 

 hawk strike at some fowls close to the house, which weighed four pounds, 

 sending them screeching and flying for shelter. It would stoop at Flickers, 

 following them into trees, and strike the trunk of a pine simultaneously 

 with and beside the screaming fugitive without making any attempt to 

 seize it. I therefore came to the conclusion that these and previous attacks 

 on the poultry were made purely for sport. 



03. Accipiter cooperi. Cooper's Hawk. — Rare. In sixteen years I 

 have only seen this hawk three times. At my ranch in Custer County, 

 one, on September 13, 1893. At my ranch in Dawson County, one, which 

 flew out of a belt of pines on April 30, 1903. At the last named place on 

 August 7, 1905, the loud screaming of a flock of Piilon Jays attracted my 

 attention to a Cooper's Hawk by which they were menaced. 



04. Accipiter atricapillus. American Goshawk. — An irregular fall 

 migrant in both counties. According to my records it is of more common 

 occurrence than Cooper's Hawk. I never saw a Goshawk myself until 

 September 22, 1903, but Mr. J. H. Price (who used to go hawking with 

 one in England), has seen the bird several times during the last seventeen 

 years when shooting ducks in the fall. On October 18, 1905, Mr. Price 

 was after ducks in a snowstorm at his ranch near Knowlton when a Gos- 

 hawk seized, and carried past him, a shrieking Blue-winged Teal, just as 

 he was on the point of firing at the latter's companions. The reports 

 caused the hawk to drop the teal into some buck brush but it remained 

 near and, as usual, was of great assistance to the shooter. With a hawk 

 in the neighborhood, ducks rise at close range and are afraid to go clean 

 away. Shortly after the above incident Mr. M. M. Archdale was shoot- 

 ing ducks on his ranch, which adjoins that of Mr. Price, when the same 

 or a similar hawk compelled a flock of teal to return twice to the water 

 from which they had been originally started. He thus made a good bag. 

 On November 19, 1905, my wife saw a Goshawk sitting on the ground 

 watching the poultry at our ranch in Dawson County. On this occasion 

 the hawk did no harm. 



During the end of September and beginning of October, 1906, however, 

 a Goshawk frequented this ranch, and killed four pure bred Plymouth 

 Rocks of which we kept a number in two different places. The hawk 

 appeared to lurk on a pine-covered hill about half a mile away, in full 

 view of the windows, from whence, if the coast was clear, it swept across 



