BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 177 
reach the State in pairs, often in the last days of March but 
not usually later than the fifth of April, but do not build until 
about the fifth or the tenth of May. 
The nest is like most hawks’ nests, rather bulky and consists 
of sticks, twigs, grass and a few leaves, and is placed in a 
fork of the tree about fifty to sixty feet from the ground. 
The full complement is six cream-white eggs, considerably 
splotched with iron-rust and speckled with dark brown. 
After the young are grown they are met with in families in 
their hunting excursion, when they extend them into small 
prairies, openings in immediate proximity to forests, being 
their natural territory, into which they glide instantly in the 
presence of supposed danger. Openings in the timber afford 
them their chosen food, insects of the larger varieties and 
reptiles of the smaller species, from. which they affect those 
so large as to be called small prairies, that are however more 
or less embraced by bodies of timber. Late in summer they 
almost subsist upon grasshoppers alone, so abundant are they 
habitually at that season almost everywhere in the State. 
About the first of September they leave us for warmer lati- 
tudes. Rarely some remain a little later, if severe frosts are 
delayed. 
Their flight is simply a marvel of grace, ease and velocity 
that must beseen to be fully appreciated. When a ‘‘hopper,” 
lizzard, or a diminutive snakeis discovered by one of them, it 
drops upon it more like a snowflake than a raptorial bird. Feet 
and bill seem to seize the victim simultaneously, but it is in- 
stantly relinquished by the foot, if an insect, and by the bill if 
a reptile. Mr. Washburn, who found the species common at 
Mille Lacs and otherwheres that he went, gives an account of 
one of these birds, after being annoyed by a blackbird (possi- 
bly by a purple martin), quick as a flash turning upon its back, 
seizing its pestiferous assailant and bearing him remorselessly 
away for an unexpected luncheon. Itis not accounted a very 
brave hawk, but itis a mistake that they will not fight if at bay 
with a broken wing. The extremely pointed talons, although 
not as powerful as are those of many others of the hawks, are 
capable of inflicting severe wounds, when sustained by a very 
cruel beak. They are not inclined to fight unless driven to it, 
but their discretion is seldom wanting when danger comes, out 
of which those long, pointed wings bear them with the speed 
of an arrow. 
