A YOUNG MARSH HAWK 



Most country boys, I fancy, know the marsh 

 hawk. It is he you see flying low over the 

 fields, beating about bushes and marshes and 

 dipping over the fences, with his attention di- 

 rected to the ground beneath him. He is a 

 cat on wings. He keeps so low that the birds 

 and mice do not see him till he is fairly upon 

 them. The hen-hawk swoops down upon the 

 meadow-mouse from his position high in air, or 

 from the top of a dead tree; but the marsh- 

 hawk stalks him and comes suddenly upon him 

 from over the fence, or from behind a low bush 

 or tuft of grass. He is nearly as large as the 

 hen-hawk, but has a much longer tail. When 

 I was a boy I used to call him the long-tailed 

 hawk. The male is a bluish slate- color; the 

 female a reddish brown like the hen-hawk, with 

 a white rump. 



Unlike the other hawks, they nest on the 

 ground in low, thick marshy places. For 

 several seasons a pair have nested in a bushy 

 marsh a few miles back of me, near the house 

 of a farmer friend of mine, who has a keen eye 

 for the wild life about him. Two years ago he 

 found the nest^ but when I got over to see it 

 the next week, it had been robbed, probably 



