18 



ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Vol. 8-No. 3 



Great-homed Owl is habitual. The Barred 

 Owl takes a hole when it can find one, 

 and if not, an old nest. Failing there, he 

 builds a very small nest of the flimsiest 

 sort. To show the dislike of our Eaptores 

 to nidification, let me rejaroduce an avian 

 drama to which usher nature gave me a 

 free pass and open stall last Spring. The 

 scene opens late in March on Plain Hill, 

 where a joair of Red-shouldered Hawks 

 were furbishing up the nest in which off 

 and on they had bred for five years. Their 

 dalliance was pleasant, no doubt, but dan- 

 gerously long, for a Barred Owl slipped in 

 and laid two eggs April 1 and 3. The 

 Hawks were virtually indignant, and were 

 often seen to dash down towards the nest, 

 as if to dispossess the intnider, but they 

 always wisely stopped a few inches above 

 the snapping bill and mass of fluffy feath- 

 ers with nine points of law in its favor. 

 The Hawks at length went across a small 

 swamp and re-upholstered the nest in 

 which the Owl bred in '81. I now took 

 the two Owl's eggs, supposing the clutch 

 complete, but she then went across the 

 swamp and laid the third egg in her old 

 tenement. When I climbed to the second 

 nest, with the Hawks in possession, it con- 

 tained three Buteo's eggs and one Barred 

 Owl's. Blowing showed that the Owl's 

 egg was slightly incubated, and it would 

 have been interesting perhaps to have let 

 nature had her course with this motley 

 chitch. The unwearied owl now went 

 back to the first nest and laid and hatched 

 her second clutch of two eggs. Ovii:)osit 

 ing after a while again becoming a neces- 

 sity for the Hawks, they too repaired to 

 the opening scene of our drama from 

 high life, and after a few noisy demonstra- 

 tions against the Owl, took up their new 

 quarters in a tree within gunshot of the 

 first. The nest was so small I could not 

 believe that even our smallest Buteo {penn- 

 sylvanicus), could breed in it, though I saw 

 the great female Red-shouldered come from 

 it, and could see that it was feathered 



through my field glass. Climbing showed 

 it to have a very large and bright initial 

 egg, which was riddled with shot the next 

 day by so-called hawk-hunters. The ma- 

 rauders completed the series of reprisals 

 by carrying away my young owls. 



Aside from my first object, I have dwelt 

 on the final details of this little tragedy, 

 because it also is a fair illustration of the 

 domestic troubles of the Rapacise here in 

 the breeding season. With every man's 

 hand against them — hunter, farmer and 

 collector — it is a continued source of won- 

 der that so many eggs, are taken and so 

 many hawks left. Some may be alien birds 

 drawn by the food supply. But as a solu- 

 tion to this question it is not unreasonable 

 to suppose that later iti the season when 

 the farmers are busy with field work and 

 the collector is eagerly following.the small 

 birds in their Summer homes in the out- 

 skirts of the woods, that made wary by 

 pursuit, and screened by the dense foliage, 

 the resident Buteos manage to "steal" an 

 occasional nest and bring up enough young 

 to keep up the old local race. This idea 

 is in part born out by the fact that in my 

 Winter tramps through our leafless woods, 

 I now and then run across a Hawk's nest 

 which I knew was not there the year before 

 and the first chapter of whose life history 

 had not been revealed to me. — J. M. W., 

 JVorwich, Conn. 



Notes from Nebraska. 



April 21, '82, found my first nest of the 

 American Long Eared Owl. 'Twas in the 

 forks of a small white oak tree fifteen feet 

 from the ground and contained five eggs 

 ready to hatch. It resembled that of the 

 Common Crow, only smaller. Wliile I was 

 examining this nest the old birds showed 

 their disj)leasure by flying and darting 

 close to me, continually snapping the bill. 



At times they would alight upon the 

 ground and with spread wings and tail 

 flutter around, doubtless for the purjDose 

 of alluring the intruder from their nest. 



