July, 1881.] 



i^ND OOLOGIST. 



37 



The Season of 81. 



The notes of Judge Holbrook, in the 

 June number show, wliat birds can be seen, 

 and how many hints on migration obtained, 

 in simply walking from hous3 to office with- 

 out once setting foot off the pavement. 

 To follow these birds afield, and observe 

 their breeding habits, also other and allied 

 species not noted here by the above ob- 

 server is the purpose of the present 

 writer. 



I have kept up my average of over fifty 

 hawks' eggs this season without special 

 search. Ox course more or less traveling 

 and sky-gazing was involved, but by "with- 

 out search" is meant that no new pairs of 

 hawks were looked after and no new 

 woods traversed. Bat in the old haunts 

 I harry my Buteos and Accipiters each 

 year with as much confidence as the Green- 

 lander annually robs the Eider Duck of 

 eggs and down. 



Mvrch 1 "and April 24," I took sets of 

 two eggs each from a Barred Owl's hole, 

 which in four seasons has yielded me twen- 

 ty four eggs. These "short sets" were com- 

 plete ; to make the znatter certain, a hen's 

 egg was substituted for each set, but the 

 clutch was not increased. April 30th "took 

 two infertile and undersized eggs of this 

 species from an outside nest, the first 

 found in such a situation for several years. 

 I took three Red Shouldered Hawks from 

 it late last year, May 4th, so the nest was 

 left in good condition. The outside was 

 built strongly of slicks by crows, in 1879, 

 to which the hawks, after throwing out 

 the usual winter litter made by squirrels, 

 added a fine and bulky lining. This was 

 in turn all toi'n away by the owl, and the 

 eggs, laid in the deep bowl on bare sticks 

 were visible from the ground through a 

 field-glass. A male Barred Owl was shot 

 here in the mating season, the second 

 week in March, and this may account for 

 the condition of the eggs. This owl, after 

 covering her sterile products for four 

 weeks, had the audacity to hoot and snap 

 lier bill at me because I ]3revented her 



from setting all summer to no purpcse. 



In the Salt Rock Woods, an old nest in 

 which were well grown, young Red-tailed 

 Hawks, May 11th, 1880, had two yciuig 

 Great Horned Owls, April 10th. 1880. The 

 Red-tails this year, finding in their home 

 powerful tenants, with nine points of law 

 in their favor, built a new nest half a mile 

 down the woods, from which I took the 

 usual clutch of two eggs on the above 

 date. Took set, of Buteos, April 16th, from 

 an old nest which six years ago held seven 

 crow's eggs. In the interim the nest had 

 been patched more then once, and even 

 partly feathered, and so had done dntj as a 

 decoy on several occasions. May 8th, took 

 from adjoining swamps two sets of -S. 

 lineat'us too far gone in incubation to be 

 preserved. I have certainly left this sea- 

 son three pairs of this species to breed in 

 woods reasonably secure from the far- 

 mers' muzzle-loaders. This year's ex- 

 perience adds data to the fact that -S. 

 borealis loves to breed on dry hillsides, 

 where the woods are rather open, and a 

 wide range of view can be had of the ap- 

 proaches to the west, Avhile li. lineatus 

 breeds commonly in low-lying, wooded in 

 tervals and swamps. 



A pair of Cooper's Hawks, which gave 

 six eggs in '79 and four in '80, again came 

 to the front with five eggs the second 

 w^eek in May, '81. Last season I took an 

 addled egg from a Marsh Hawk's nest and 

 a slightly chipped egg which I placed in 

 my pocket. Tlie chipped egg however 

 soon proved to be a very lively music-box, 

 oval design, and "wound up" by the key 

 of nature. The nest also held four lusty 

 young a week old. The hawk occupied 

 two weeks in ovipositing and four weeks 

 in incubation. From this pair of Harriers, 

 May 25th, this year, I have a set of four 

 fine sj)herical eggs. A Sharp-shinned 

 Hawk, which gave me a large set of eggs 

 last year, wdth a "runt" egg at the end of 

 the clutch, this season laid the runt egg 

 at the beginning of her clutch which was 

 not unusual in number. The life-history 



