274 WILD WINGS 



pated, and there was the rascal, well up in the air, circling 

 about with alternate soarings and a series of quick flappings. 

 Despite the fact that two men were working right there, and 

 had a gun close at hand, no sooner would they get to work 

 with saw and hammer than down the hawk would dash and 

 snatch a chicken within a yard or two of them. Twice or 

 thrice it had tried, but the men had rushed at it and made it 

 drop the chicken. For twenty minutes I held the gun while 

 the men worked, but the hawk kept its distance. Then, as 

 I could not wait, I stood the gun against the coop and started 

 off. In a moment, hearing a commotion, I turned and laughed 

 right out to see the fierce bird flopping over the ground with 

 a chicken in its claws and a big man, shouting and gesticu- 

 lating, making such a rush that the hawk, seeing that it was 

 about to be caught, let go the chicken which was unin- 

 jured, save for a slight scratch and was ofl. It alighted 

 on a tree, and I followed with the gun, but it was too wary 

 for me. 



The situations chosen for the nest are usually tall, slender 

 trees in groves or woods. In Plymouth County, Massachu- 

 setts, it selects a pine, in western New England usually 

 a chestnut. I have never found it lower than thirty feet from 

 the ground ; usually it is from forty to fifty. The nest is 

 large for the size of the bird, a great rough pile of sticks. It 

 is very characteristic of the nest that it is unlined, save with 

 scales of rough bark, which would seem to be almost worse 

 than no lining at all. But the hawk doubtless knows what it 

 wants. 



My earliest date for eggs of this hawk was the twenty- 

 seventh of April. It was a raw, threatening day, but I drove 

 away off to the eastern edge of Middleboro to explore 

 new country, where hawks had been seen, and to go through 

 a great cedar swamp. Nothing whatever was found, and to- 



