200 Kennard, Habits of the Red-shouldered Hawk. \ y u " 



and by the side of a large swamp. The nest was so high up, 

 and seemingly so old, that I should never have noticed it had it 

 not been for the immense amount of downy feathers which clung 

 to every outstanding stick or leaf. I was riding through the woods 

 at the time, and had no climbing-irons, and so left the vicinity, as 

 there was no Hawk in sight, and returned in the afternoon with 

 a buggy, an Irishman, climbers, a two-bushel basket, and many 

 fathoms of my mother's best clothes-line. 



I had to cover myself up for over two hours before the Hawk 

 would show herself sufficiently to be identified, and even then 

 she only flew up, looked at the nest, and then quickly flapped oil' 

 again. I managed to shin the tree, and procured the nest, as 

 well as a set of two very peculiar, muddy-colored, and small- 

 sized eggs, which were about one-half hatched. 



On April 20, 1S85, I found what I took to be this pair's nest 

 ahout 40 feet up in the crotch of an enormous chestnut tree 

 which grew beside a marsh near Weld Farm, and about three- 

 quarters of a mile from where I had found it the year before. 

 This nest was also covered with feathers, but after a terribly 

 laborious climb, I found no eggs, neither did I even see the 

 Hawks around it. Who or what rohbed it, and how he or it 

 got up to it, I never found out, unless by a tall ladder, for there 

 were no marks of climbing upon the bark of the tree. 



On April 14, 18S6, I found another nest of what I now know 

 to be this same pair, built in the crotch of a large oak, about 30 

 feet from the ground, and covered with feathers as the last two 

 had been. This oak grew on a low hillside that overlooked 

 some meadows, through which a brook ran, and was only about 

 200 yards from the nest of the previous year. 



The Hawks behaved in exactly the same manner as they had 

 on previous occasions. The nest was similar, and what is of 

 more consequence, the eggs, four in number, which were about 

 one-fourth hatched, were precisely like those found in 1SS4, 

 queer, small, and mud-colored. I tried for nearly two hours to 

 get a shot at the Hawks, but thev never showed themselves even 

 in the distance in that time. 



I was unable to go after Hawks in 1SS7 at all, and while I have 

 reason to think that this pair built in the same locality in iSSS, 

 only farther towards Jamaica Plain, I was unable to find their 

 nest. 



