272 WILD WINGS 



There was nothing to do but to beat through the tract 

 systematically, and I went at it with a will. Back and forth, 

 round and round, I plodded. I was soaked by falling into 

 bog-holes, and perspiration ran in rivers. At the end of three 

 hours I was deliberating an inglorious surrender, when sud- 

 denly from the grass and bushes about ten feet from me, a 

 little to one side, up sprang the female Marsh Hawk. What 

 a fuss she made, flying back and forth over me within easy 

 gunshot, and keeping up an incessant screaming and cack- 

 ling. I hastened forward. The grass was matted down on 

 the south side of two small larches in a rather open spot. 

 The bird had built a slovenly nest of coarse weed-stems and 

 grass, flat on the ground. It contained two dirty-white eggs, 

 unspotted, the set being still incomplete. 



Next season I did not get to the swamp till May twenty- 

 ninth. I had another long search, until finally, as I was away 

 down at the other end of the tract, the female began to fly 

 around in evident anxiety. It was for a time a game of " hot 

 or cold." When the hawk relaxed her efforts, I knew I was 

 on the wrong track, and as she grew more excited, I knew 

 I was making progress. At length I came upon a nest simi- 

 lar to the first, containing five young, in various stages of 

 growth, one apparently just hatched, and the oldest several 

 times as large ; the eggs must have been laid by the end 

 of April. This time Mrs. Hawk fairly outdid herself. I had 

 brought a youth with me to help patrol the swamp, and 

 he really thought the bird would scratch his eyes out. She 

 dived frantically at our heads, scratching at us with her 

 claws. Once or twice she actually struck me. Indeed, I know 

 of a man who was driven out of a berry-pasture by one of 

 these hawks, which doubtless had young in the bushes. Next 

 year my harriers nested again near where I first found them, 

 and there were five fresh eggs on the thirtieth of April. 



