MARSH HAWK 123 



to expect his visits, being regularly decimated. Particu- 

 lar hawks farm particular meadows. It must be easy 

 for him to get a breakfast. Far as I can see with a 

 glass, he is still tilting this way and that over the 

 water-line. 



May 2, 1858. If I were to be a frog hawk for a month 

 I should soon know some things about the frogs. How 

 patiently they skim the meadows, occasionally alighting, 

 and fluttering as if it were difficult ever to stand still 

 on the ground. I have seen more of them than usual 

 since I too have been looking for frogs. 



May 30, 1858. P. M. — To hen-harrier's nest and to 

 Ledum Swamp. 



Edward Emerson shows me the nest which he and 

 another discovered. It is in the midst of the low wood, 

 sometimes inundated, just southwest of Hubbard's 

 Bath, the island of wood in the meadow. The hawk 

 rises when we approach and circles about over the 

 wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one 

 of the flicker. The nest is in a more bushy or open 

 place in this low wood, and consists of a large mass 

 of sedge and stubble with a very few small twigs, as 

 it were accidentally intermingled. It is about twenty 

 inches in diameter and remarkably flat, the slight de- 

 pression in the middle not exceeding three quarters 

 of an inch. The whole opening amid the low bushes 

 is not more than two feet in diameter. The thickness 

 of it raises the surface about four inches above the 

 ground. The inner and upper part is jmiformly rather 

 fine and pale-brown sedge. There are two dirty, or 

 rather dirtied, white eggs left (of four that were), one 



