184 Bird -Lore 



Fehruarv 13. The Great Horned Owls began hooting nearly 

 an hour before sunset this evening. It is remarkable how loud 

 their cry sounds at a distance of half a mile or even a mile. I 

 am convinced that they can be heard distinctly two miles away, for 

 I have often heard them in the day time from a direction in which 

 the nearest woods were at least as far as that. There are always 

 several pairs dwelling in a certain dark hemlock swamp about a 

 mile and a half away, and sometimes in the evening, or by moon- 

 light, they come hunting" across the meadows and pastures, hooting 

 at intervals as ihey come. When they get within one hundred 

 yards or so their cry is loud enough to arouse everyone in the 

 house. 



February 18. Followed the track of a Hawk, apparently a 

 Goshawk, twenty or thirty rods through the birch woods west of the 

 cove. From the appearance of the tracks the bird must have 

 walked much after the manner of a Crow, though dragging its 

 claws more. Occasionally it hopped for a few feet. There was no 

 sign of its having killed any game near there and having eaten so 

 much as to be unable to fly at once, as is sometimes the case. At 

 times it followed in the tracks of rabbits for some distance. I have 

 often known them to do this, and am inclined to think that they 

 occasionally hunt rabbits in this manner where the under-brush 

 is too dense to allow them to fly through it easily. I have some- 

 times followed their tracks through the brush until I came upon 

 the remains of freshly killed rabbits which they had been eating. 

 On coming out into an opening, I saw a beautiful male Goshawk 

 in full blue plumage perched on the the top of a dead maple in a 

 swamp. When I tried to approach, he ' took wing and flew off 

 toward the north. 



