224 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



within easy range of a shotgun, but I had no desire 

 to injure them. The red-shouldered hawk lives 

 mainly upon insects, small animals, and reptiles, 

 and is no menace to poultry or small birds. In 

 this instance the small birds in the swamp sang 

 their songs with no apparent interest in the 

 angry hawks above them. 



A visit to the nest showed that its limited and 

 uncomfortable platform sustained three downy 

 young birds whose plump bodies were so placed 

 that the three heads faced the circumference of 

 the nest at three different points. They looked 

 as though they had been out of the shell about a 

 week. A half-eaten yellow-throated frog was 

 in the bottom of the nest. During this in- 

 spection the parent birds were flying in small 

 circles a thousand feet or more above the swamp. 

 I think their first boldness was due to my 

 stealthy approach and quick concealment, which 

 left them in doubt as to what manner of crea- 

 ture I was. As the young birds were not 

 quite large enough to make it safe to take them 

 prisoners they were left for a time to the tender 

 care of their natural protectors. 



Not far from the hawk's nest I found the tree 

 from which my barred owls had been taken in 

 1888 and this year. The tree is a beech over 

 sixty feet high, having in its great trunk a 

 cavity large enough to admit a man's head and 



