FIELD AND STUDY 



upon its game. It haunts the fields and meadows 

 over a wide area like a spirit, up and down and 

 around and across it goes, only a few feet above the 

 ground, eyeing sharply every yard of surface be- 

 neath it, now and then dropping down into the 

 grass, never swooping or striking savagely, but 

 halting and alighting rather deliberately, evidently 

 not in pursuit of a bird, but probably attracted 

 by field mice. The eye follows its course with pleas- 

 ure; such industry, such ease of movement, such 

 deliberation, such a tireless quest over the summer 

 fields all contribute to make a picture which we 

 look upon with interest. It is usually the female 

 which we see on such occasions; she is larger and 

 darker in color than the male, and apparently upon 

 her falls the main support of the family. Said family 

 is usually composed of three or four young in a nest 

 upon the ground in a marsh, where it is not easy for 

 the pedestrian to reach. The hunting habits of the 

 hen-hawk are quite different. It subsists largely, not 

 upon hens or poultry as its name would seem to in- 

 dicate, but upon field mice and other small rodents, 

 which it swoops down upon from a point in the air 

 above them, where it hovers a moment on beating 

 wing, or from the top of some old stub or dry branch 

 in the meadow. Its nest is usually placed fifty or 

 more feet from the ground in some large forest tree, 

 and is made of dry twigs and branches. I have 

 found but one marsh hawk's nest, and not more 

 164 



