300 



LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



common in that country, composed of sticks, and slightly lined with moss and 

 M few feathers. 1 



Mr. L. M. Turner observed ;i few of these birds in the vicinity of Fort 

 Cliimo, Labrador, in 1882 and 1883, but failed to find their nests or eggs. 



Mr. R. II. Taylor describes a nest of the Pigeon Hawk taken by himself 

 on April G, 1888, in Santa Clara County, California. He says: "I first saw 

 the nest late in May one year ago, when it contained three young birds 

 ready to fly. It was located on a steep mountain side on the stock ranch 

 of Mr. J. P. Sargent, in the above named county, on a ledge of a precip- 

 itous bluff about 35 feet high. While near the nest last year the old bird was 

 astonishingly fearless and would swoop down close to my head, uttering 

 ear-piercing cries. These angry demonstrations, while they made me some- 

 what apprehensive of damaged eyes, afforded an excellent opportunity for 

 jotting down a description of this Falcon. 



"\Vhen I visited the nest this season the bird flew off as I came up 

 and winged its peculiar flight across the canon, when it settled quietly on a 

 hillside. My friend Mr. R. C. Sargent, adjusted the end of a rawhide lariat to 

 my body, and as soon as the rope had been placed around a small shrub 

 which grew above, I swung over the ledge and was slowly lowered toward 

 the nest, and as it was rather in from the face of the cliff I found it diffi- 

 cult to get a foothold, but, when I did at last, saw that it was composed 

 simply of pieces of friable rock, and in it, to my delighted surprise, were five 

 eggs, which contained large embroyos." 2 



While I was stationed at Camp Harney, Oregon, a woodchopper work- 

 ing in the lower foothills of the Blue Mountains, about 5 miles from the 

 post, found a nest, probably belonging to this species, on April 20, 1876. It 

 contained five well incubated eggs, three of which he broke before I received 

 them from him, nearly a week after they were first taken. I made him 

 si n>w me the nest at once in the hope that the parents might still be found 

 in the vicinity, but a lengthy and careful search failed to discover them. 

 The two eggs left are indistinguishable, both in size and markings, from fully 

 identified specimens of this species; still they are just as likely to belong to 

 Richardson's Merlin (Falco richardsonii"), which is also found there and appar- 

 ently equally abundant. The nest, evidently built by the birds themselves, 

 was placed in a young spruce tree about 25 feet up, and close to the trunk. 

 It was well concealed and the woodchopper's attention was drawn to it by 

 the uneasiness of the birds while he was working in the vicinity. The nest 

 appeared to me considerably smaller than a Crow's nest and was loosely 

 constructed of small fir and juniper twigs, and slightly lined with dry juniper 

 bark and a little moss. 



With but few exceptions, nearly all the eggs of this species in the U. S. 

 National Museum collection were obtained north of the United States. Mr. 

 R. MacFarlane, who took several of their nests, says: "This Falcon ranges 



History of North American Birds, 1H74, Vol. in, p. I.V.J. 

 'Ornithologist and Oologist Vol. xni, I>i>.-riiilier, 1888, No. 12, p. 185. 



