72 



ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Vol. 8-No. 9 



Pigeon Hawk. 



Sparrow Hawk. 



I spent the Spring of 1882 at Brandy- 

 wine Springs, New Castle Go., Del., and a 

 great deal of my time was spent in collect- 

 ing. In one corner of the grounds, about 

 two hundred yards from the house, was an 

 old, deserted building, called the " Old 

 Lodge," and during the months of Febru- 

 ary and March I had observed a pair of 

 Pigeon Hawks sjiending a great deal of 

 time in its vicinity. Thinking they must 

 have a nest somewhere near, I made dili- 

 gent search for it, but my endeavors were 

 fruitless until March 2^ When I was en- 

 termg the lodge that morning, I was sur- 

 prised and perhaps startled by the female 

 Hawk flying out from under the roof of 

 the porch, almost in my face. This gave 

 me a fresh start, and after a short search I 

 found the nest, containing foiu- fresh eggs, 

 in a crevice on the lower part of the porch 

 roof. The nest was placed in the hollow 

 between two beams of the roof ; was cov- 

 ered by the roof and had for a foundation 

 a beam running the length of the roof. 

 The interior measured 12x5 inches and 

 was 6 inches high. The entrance measured 

 12x4 inches. The bottom of the nest was 

 a few small twigs, covered by a layer an 

 inch thick of the inner bark of the swamp 

 maple, and veiy slightly hollowed. The 

 eggs somewhat resembled those of the 

 Sparrow Hawk, but were one-eighth of an 

 inch longer and one sixteenth wider, per- 

 fectly elliptical, and marked unevenly with 

 five dots of light reddish brown, tending 

 to congregate in spots. One — the fresh- 

 est — had a large blotch of the same color 

 on one side, covering nearly one-fourth of 

 the whole surface. Further examination 

 showed that they had built there for at 

 least three years before, as that number of 

 similar nests were found in other crevices 

 near the first. It seemed stninge that so 

 shy a Hawk should choose such a nesting- 

 place, but as the grounds had not been 

 used for at least five years, until the pre- 

 vioiis Fall, that may accoimt for it : though 



the "Old Lodge" stood not more than 

 twenty-five feet from a much traveled road. 



The same Spring (1882) I found two 

 Span'ow Hawk's nests about two miles 

 north of the Springs. They were both 

 built in the same tree — a large hollow 

 sycamore — and the two families seemed to 

 live very peacefully. One was in a hole in 

 a branch aboiit fifty feet from the grou.nd 

 and contained three eggs laid on the bare 

 wood, as were all the eggs of this species 

 that I ever found. The second nest was 

 rather curious. When climbing after the 

 first, I noticed a second pair of birds go- 

 ing in and out of a large hole near the 

 root of the tree, and after securing the first 

 set, reversed my climbers and \\dth a good 

 deal of hard labor ascended to the first large 

 branch, about twenty-five feet up, where the 

 female flew out and dropped down past 

 me. I found another set of eggs in the 

 hollow of this branch, about three feet 

 back from the trunk. There were several 

 small knot-holes in the branch near the 

 nest, but none of them would admit any- 

 thing larger than a Sparrow, so that the 

 Hawks were compelled to ascend inside 

 the tree to reach their nest. How they 

 found and why thej chose such a situation 

 I leave for others to conjecture — Charles 

 D. Gibson, Menovo, Pa. 



Albino Blackbird. Theodore Hoffman, 

 Rockville, Conn., May 15, 1883, shot a 

 male Crow Blackbird with a white throat 

 and cheeks with a few white feathers scat- 

 tered over the body. It was first seen in 

 the Spring. 



Monkey-faced Owls. We tender our 

 thanks to Wm. P. Tarrant of Saratoga, N. 

 Y., for a fine card photograph of the above 

 Owls, which we may engrave and have 

 something to say about in a future number. 



Mounted Birds lost in a Cyclone. W. H. 

 H. King of Jacksonville, 111., lost about 

 300 mounted birds and some skins. They 

 were in the hands of a taxidermist who 

 with five of his family were killed in the 

 storm. 



