VII 



A YOUNG MARSH HAWK 



ny /TOST 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 directed 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. 



