98 



OKKITHOLOGIST 



[Yol. 12-]S'o. 7 



but that night it was carelesslj'^ left on the 

 ground and I never saw it again. 



Stopped for the night at a point known as 

 the "big Crossing" where the old cattle trails 

 from "Pawnee Buttes" cross the creek. 



I secured a good set of Swainsou's Hawk 

 {Buteo sioainsoni), three eggs, and we killed 

 two large rattle snakes quite near the tent. 



On Saturday, May 22nd, about midnight we 

 were awakened by a terrible roar and even be- 

 fore we had time to speak to each other, one of 

 our short notice Colorado zephyrs had sti-uck 

 us and away went our tent in a direction tow- 

 ards the horses, followed up by a big train of 

 rattling tin ware. It was as dark as Egypt and 

 we spent the rest of the night under the wagon, 

 our sleep being broken at intervals by the 

 howling of the Cayotes, and the patter of rain 

 which continued until morning. When day- 

 light came we could see nothing of our horses. 

 One rope was broken near the noose and the 

 other was missing entirely. I suppose when all 

 that white canvas came flapping up in the wind 

 that thej'^ could not resist the temptation to 

 stampede. 



We fished the tent out of the muddy creek 

 some four hundred yards below camp, gath- 

 ered together what else we could find of our 

 effects and sat down to a rather dismal break- 

 fast, after which I started out for the horse 

 ranche eight miles above, where I knew I could 

 find plenty of horses with which to hunt up 

 my own. On the way Ifiushed a Western Red- 

 tail (Buteo horealis calurus), from her nest in a 

 high willow. 



I reached the ranche a little before noon, 

 took dinner, after which one of tlie men caught 

 me a horse and I was oft" down the creek again. 

 I took a strong pair of field glasses, mj^ "lasso" 

 and a rubber blanket and set out over the prai- 

 rie at the rate of twelve miles an hour. To 

 make the narrative of that long hot afternoon 

 short, I found the runaways at the Colony gate, 

 roped them, shifted my saddle on one, and was 

 back at camp by nine o'clock that night. A 

 ride of some fifty miles in five hours. 



On Sunday, May 23rd, the outfit was packed 

 up and I proceeded up the creek. We went in- 

 to camp in a large grove of old cottonwoods 

 just above the ranche and spent our Sabbath 

 there. Birds of all kinds were numerous 

 around the ranche and among them were great 

 numbers of the Western Yellow-bellied Fly- 

 catcher {Empidonax clifficilis). They all seemed 

 to have just arrived and I saw many species 

 new to the country, but it was too early for 

 their eggs. 



In this connection I might here add that al- 

 though I was at least six days behind the time 

 that I usually find fresh eggs of the hawk, all 

 that I took on this trip were perfectly fresh and 

 the sets were mostly complete. 



On Monday, May 24th, we got oft' in good sea- 

 son and went up the creek some eight miles 

 and then struck out on the prairie for four or 

 five miles until we came to Willow Creek. I 

 saw many a solitary Mountain Plover (Podaso- 

 cys montanus), stalk oft", but for the life of me 

 I could not find their nests. These are very 

 hard to discover, being flat on the ground with 

 no relief and the actions of the birds are very 

 deceitful. This, however, was the time to ob- 

 tain fresh eggs. 



On Willow Creek the trees are few and far 

 between, yet with but few exceptions every 

 tree contained a hawk's nest. It is nothing but 

 a "dry run," with here and there a spring com- 

 ing out of the banks, yet a better locality for 

 hawk's nests cannot be found in all Colorado. 

 Our course was directly up the creek towai-ds 

 the chalk blufts that now began to appear in 

 the northern horizon. We had no road to fol- 

 low and went bumping over the cactus beds. 

 Sometimes we had to go back on our tracks for 

 several hundred yards to get out of a small 

 canon that we had unconsciously rode into. 



Our 'first finds were two sets of Western Red- 

 tail, of thi'ee eggs each. One nest I reached 

 out of the wagon, and the other only by a tough 

 scramble through the lower branches of the 

 willow in which it was placed. Both nests 

 were shallow, rough structures, and were lined 

 with green bunches of cotton balls. 



Our native cotton wood trees are covered with 

 large bunches of cotton balls that very much 

 resemble grapes. These do not break until 

 about the last of June, but the hawks, as I 

 have found by careful observation, pick ofT 

 these bunches and about fill up their nest with 

 them. The heat of the hawk while sitting not 

 only hatches out the eggs but hatches the cot- 

 ton, so to speak, and our young Buteo is usher- 

 ed into tills world on a soft bed of down. 



As I remember it this day I took some twelve 

 or thirteen eggs of the Western Red-tail and 

 five eggs of Swainson's Hawk, but a little acci- 

 dent that then happened left me with but few 

 sound eggs. The team ran away over the 

 rough praiiie, scattering our whole outfit out 

 and nearly all the eggs were broken. Things 

 were all rather scattered and when we drew 

 around the supper table that evening we only 

 had one plate between us. 



The best stopping place at noon we could 



