THS OOLiOOiaT. 



11 



few feathers. One of them contained 

 a single fresh egg on which the bird 

 was sitting while in the other in- 

 stance both owners circled around 

 overhead but no eggs had been depos- 

 ited. 



I was very enxious to visit my 

 ihiafwks again some three weeks later 

 but circumstances prevented. How- 

 ever, on the 30th of April of the pres- 

 ent year I paid them another visit, 

 going first to the tree that held nest 

 No. 3 of the' previous year and finding 

 it unoccupied so I hurried away to 

 the Cottonwood in which the first one 

 described was ibuilt, hut found disap- 

 pointment awiaiting me there' also for 

 no nest was to be seen. Not far 

 away, thoug'h, was a much, smaller 

 tree 'but it did not seem promising as 

 quite a numher of small birds' were 

 singing and flitting 'about in it. How- 

 ever, I soon discovered a 'big nest up 

 in the topmost branches. This nest 

 seemed worth investigating as a big 

 sooty-colored hawk was flapping 

 around nearby. It was a rather easy 

 climb to the nest whichj contained 

 four unusually well-marked eggs and 

 I became so interested that I nearly 

 fell from the tree when a hawk, with 

 an angry scream, darted past me only 

 a few feet away. She came from be- 

 hind me and had e'vidently been ma- 

 king a long flight as she came in on a 

 slight downward slant, the noise pro- 

 duced by her wings reminding one 

 of a distant waterfall. After dash- 

 ing at me the first time she ascended 

 on a long upward curve, then sudden- 

 ly turned and came iback again but 

 with these two attacks her anger 

 seemed to 'have been spent and she 

 afterwards' circled around nearby 

 while her mate remained at a great- 

 er distance. The most aggressive of 

 these birds, which I believed to be 

 the female, showed an unsually light 

 phase of plumage' while her mate, as 



before mentioned, was of an almost 

 uniform sooty-color. 



A sihort time before finding the 

 nest I had seen about half a dozen, of 

 these hawks sitting on the fence 

 posts and on the ground in a pasture 

 that had heen iburned over and they 

 were undoubtedly engaged in catch- 

 ing mice. Their actions were such 

 as to give one the iniipression that 

 they were sluggi&h birds, but the two 

 at the nest rather upset this theory. 

 I might mention that in the tree with 

 the hawk's nest a pair of Arkansas 

 Kingbirds had also commenced build- 

 ing and the framework of a Bullock 

 Oriole's summer home was suspend- 

 ed from an outer branch; but of 

 course it remained for the English 

 Sparrow to outdo them all for as I 

 was climbing the tree, the saucy chirp 

 of a sparrow was heard overhead. An 

 inspection sihowed that a mass of 

 rubbish, grass stems' and feathers had 

 been carried in among the larger 

 sticks in the foundation and probably 

 a brood of young sparrows were af 

 terwards raised there. 



It might be well to give a descrip- 

 tion of this nest of ButeO' swainsoni 

 before passing to another. Outward- 

 ly it was! much larger than any of the 

 others that I had examined being 

 nearly two and one-half feet in diame- 

 ter and sixteen inches in depth, the 

 inner cavity being about four inches 

 deep. The size was governed no 

 doubt by the position in which the 

 nest was built and this I helieve is 

 the case with nearly all large nests. 

 It was lined with green cottonwood 

 leaves and feathers and was 28% feet 

 from the ground. The eggs had been 

 incubated ahout one week. 



My limited time did not allow an 

 attempt to reach the two nests along 

 the slough but I ihad the pleasure of 

 finding another new one in the sec- 

 ond of the two willows described as 



