180 NOTES ON THE 
scattered accidently by the parent in tearing it for them from 
large snakes and frogs, or consisting of insects discovered by 
the young birds themselves. The observation has proved a 
valuable aid in searching for late nests. 
ACCIPITER VELOX (Witson). (332. ) 
SHARP-SHINNED HAWK. 
This hawk isa familiar one in its migrations, being quite 
common, and some of them remain during the winter. As soon 
as the season for nidification arrives, to the casual observer 
they seem to have left the country, but they retire to the un- 
frequented sections, notably the borders of forests and thickets, 
which no one less a ‘‘crank” than an industrious ornithologist, 
would think of penetrating. I have secured a few nests, that 
were all built in trees about fifteen to twenty feet from the 
ground, and consisting of sticks and grass, lined with moss and 
a few feathers. Someof them contained but two eggs, but as 
one had five, I may reasonably suppose the former clutch was 
incomplete. They build about the last week in April, having 
arrived in the country about the first. The eggs are dingy- 
whitish, irregularly splashed with different degrees of brown. 
They begin to diminish in numbers about the middle of Sep- 
tember, but, strange as the assertion may seem, it has been 
impossible to say when they have all gone, for not a month 
of the severest winters ever known in this high latitude has 
failed to record its presence. For many years during my 
earlier residence here, the practice of my profession took me 
across the bleak prairies very frequently in winter, on which 
occasions I constantly saw flocks of Snow Buntings. At differ- 
ent times their actions indicated the presence of a hawk, but 
the idea of the possibillty was not entertained until on one occa- 
sion, when I was returning from one of those trips, with the 
mercury at 48 below, as I afterwards learned, and with a wind 
blowing furiously from but afew degrees west of north, I saw 
one of this species coming before it with inconceivable velocity, 
and oblivious of my presence, as I was ina sleigh, it swept 
close to the ground over the brow of a knoll close to me, and 
seized a bunting out of a flock sitting so close that I had not 
seen it, though directly in front of me. My astonishment was 
boundless, but I had now the key to the actions of those flocks 
I had so long observed. I was thoroughly familiar with the 
Sharp shinned Hawk. having many times watched his peerless 
accomplishments in hunting and seizing his prey, oftentimes 
