106 HAWKS. 
the Red-shoulder, and is equally deserving of protec- 
tion. He is larger than the Red-shoulder, whom he re- 
sembles in habits, and has a reddish 
gsrhagesarigy brown tail and a broken black band 
across the breast when adult. His call 
is a thin, long-drawn, wheezy whistle, which reminds one 
of the sound produced by escaping steam. 
The Marsh Hawk courses to and fro over field and 
meadow, like a Gull over the water. He never sails, 
Marsh Hawk, however, but on firm wing flies easily 
Circus ludsonius. and gracefully, ever on the watch for 
Fieve 29; prey in the grasses below. He may 
sometimes mistake birds for mice, but he captures far 
more of the latter than of the former, and only 7 of the | 
124 Marsh Hawks whose stomachs were examined by 
Dr. Fisher had eaten chickens. 
The Marsh Hawk is migratory, and in winter is not 
often found north of southern Connecticut. He nests 
later than the resident Hawks, and, unlike them, builds 
his nest of grasses on the ground in the marshes, laying 
from four to six dull white or bluish white eggs early 
in May. 
The Sparrow Hawk has a perfectly clean record, 
as far as chickens go, not one of the 320 whose stomachs 
Sparrow Hawk, | Were examined by Dr. Fisher, having 
Falco sparverius. | partaken of poultry, while no less than 
rine a1. 215 had eaten insects, and 89 had cap- 
tured mice. Grasshoppers are the Sparrow Hawk’s chief — 
food, and we may often see him hovering over the fields 
with rapidly moving wings. Then, dropping lightly down — 
on some unsuspected victim below, he returns to the bare 
limb or stub he uses for a lookout station, uttering an 
exultant killy—killy—hilly as he flies. 
The Sparrow is distributed throughout the greater 
part of North America, but in winter is not found north 
