268 HANDBOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



trees in the woods. The material used is coarse sticks, twigs, 

 leaves, and mosses. The nest, on account of its size, cannot 

 be concealed, but its elevation renders it a fairly safe place. 

 The color of this bird is a dark brown above, with many bars 

 and streaks ; the tail of the adult is rust-red, with a narroiv 

 black bar near its end. The male is about twenty -two, the 

 female about twenty-four, inches long. 



Food and habits. When you see these birds soaring 

 leisurely over a wide, deep river bottom, they are either out 

 for an airing, or their keen eyes are spying for young rabbits, 

 wood rats, mice, and other small rodents. When they espy 

 their prey, they pounce down upon it, fasten their long, 

 curved talons in it, and carry it off to some convenient place, 

 where they tear it to pieces with their hooked bill. They do 

 not always distinguish poultry from wild birds; and most 

 farmers shoot them wherever they can, although it has been 

 shown that eighty-five per cent of their food consists of 

 small, injurious rodents. They should, therefore, not be 

 molested, unless they habitually visit your barnyard. 



You may now compare the structure of the red-tailed 

 hawk with that of the duck, and show how each bird is 

 adapted to the life it leads. If illustrative material of 

 some other hawk is more accessible, the teacher may sub- 

 stitute that. Any one of the larger or of the smaller hawks 

 shows the structure that is typical of birds of prey. 



63. The Great Horned Owl. Bubo Virginianus. 

 MATERIAL : Similar to that for hawks. 



A small boy was out camping in the woods for the first 

 time in his life. Towards evening a terrible thunderstorm 

 swept through the woods. The thunder crashed incessantly, 

 the storm roared, the trees were bent, the little boy looked 

 scared and asked his father if the tent was going to fall 

 down on them. Half an hour later it was dark, nothing 



