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SOME BKEKDlNG-HABirS OF THE SPAKKOW- 



HAWK. 



(8) Laying and Incubation. — Part III. 



J. H. OWEN. 



Some of my notes on this subject were published in British 

 Birds, Vol. XII., pages 6i, 74. These were not fully 

 satisfactory, and I had hoped to supplement them by further 

 observations when time and opportunity would allow. 

 Since they appeared I have examined quite a large number 

 of nests and most of the notes I have taken merely corroborate 

 what has already been published. Many birds commence 

 building operations in February as has already been stated. 

 Some of the records for this year may be of interest on this 

 point. I had very little time to go round the woods in 

 February but visited several of them in March. I then 

 found seven nests in process of construction. Six of them 

 had eggs in them in May, but the birds left the seventh, 

 which was being built on an old nest, and constructed an 

 entirely new one on the top of a hawthorn bush overgrown 

 with honeysuckle. Another pair of birds, in a wood I 

 could not \dsit then, made irp one old nest but deserted it 

 in May and then built up, and used, the nest we "hutted" 

 and photographed in July 1915. 



Out of twenty-six nests, found this year, as careful an 

 examination of the material as could be made without 

 destroying the nests shows that seventeen were entirely new, 

 one was on a nest constructed in 1920 but not used then, 

 four were on substantial old nests, one on a flimsy old one, 

 one of the others was founded on a squirrel's drey, one on 

 a Pigeon's nest and one on the bed of an old Magpie's. 



One nest was built in a hazel bush in a wood full of good 

 sound oaks. It was in such a situation that the boy who 

 tried to see into it shook down the nest and egg it contained. 

 It was entirely newly built. The Hawks then built a nest 

 in an oak immediately overlooking the previous situation. 



Of the nests of this year only three contained sets of six 

 eggs, five contained four, one three, and the rest five. 



The first complete set of eggs was found on May 3rd and 

 had been incubated the best part of a fortnight. Other 

 birds did not finish laying until May 17th, but the majority 

 had finished before May loth. Very few sets had the very 



