4 THE O. & O. SEMI-ANNUAL. 
remain in almost exactly the same spot for a minute or two, head 
lowered and tail spread like a fan. Nor did the reports of my 
gun appear to disconcert them much. 
Some of the dashes across or down the wind were made with 
lightning-like rapidity and set me to calculating as to what this 
bird could do on the wing if this speed could be maintained for a 
few hours. Space would be almost annihilated, or the distance 
between St. Louis and Chicago covered in one hour’s time. 
Although I remained in this field for an hour I saw no capture 
and Mr. Sparverius seemed destined to go hungry, the mice 
doubtless preferring their warm, cozy nests beneath the sod to 
braving the sharp, piercing wind on the surface. 
The field was full of the Larks but they seemed to pay no at- 
tention to them. Doubtless they occasionally vary their bill of 
fare by capturing small birds or young chickens, yet I have never 
seen them doing so. Wilson and one or two other observers 
claim to have seen them in possession of a full-grown Bobwhite 
that they had captured. 
Their full complement of eggs, at least in Illinois, is almost in- 
‘variably five. In the score or more sets which I have taken this 
rule has not varied, where there was reason for believing that the 
lay was complete. In the J. P. Norris collection, of Philadel- 
phia, there are 12 sets of 4, 14 sets of 5 and 1 set of 6 eggs. Dr. 
J. ©. Merrill, U. S. A., collected twenty-five or more sets in 
Montana. He says: ‘‘In nests found along the lower streams, 5 
eggs are the usual complement, while those in the mountains us- 
ually contained fewer. Of the nests examined most were in cav7 | 
ities in trees, either natural or made by Flickers. The eggs were 
placed on a slight bed of leaves and grasses, or a few chips, or 
on the bare wood. Holes of suitable size and shape, in rocky 
cliffs or river banks were also used for nesting places.” 
All the nests that have come under my observation with one 
exception have been in cavities of trees, and no lining of any kind 
has ever been found in the nests. The one exception is in the 
spire of a church in Jable Grove, Ill. Here, an hundred and fifty 
feet from the ground, a Woodpecker had worked a hole,-and for 
several years in succession a pair of Sparrow Hawks have raised 
their young. Perhaps no other rapftore can compare in beauty 
and elegance with a series of sets of the eggs of this little hawk. 
