398 MARSH HAWK. 
quiet until again roused by the feeling of hunger. I have often seen 
it, after sailing about in circles for a long while, half-close its wings, 
and come towards the ground, cutting curious zigzags, until within a 
few feet of it, when it would resume its usual elegant and graceful 
mode of proceeding. 
I have observed it in our western prairies in autumn moving in 
flocks of twenty, thirty, or even so many as forty individuals, and ap- 
pearing to be migrating, as they passed along at a height of fifty or 
sixty yards, without paying any attention to the objects below; but 
on all these occasions I could never find that they were bent on any 
general course more than another ; as some days a flock would be pro- 
ceeding southward, on the next to the northward or eastward. Many 
times I have seen them follow the grassy margins of our great streams, 
such as the Ohio and Mississippi, at the approach of winter, as if bent 
on going southward, but have become assured that they were merely 
attracted by the vast multitudes of Finches or Sparrows of various sorts 
which are then advancing in that direction. 
In winter, the notes which the Marsh Hawk emits while on wing, 
are sharp, and sound like the syllables pee, pee, pee, the first slightly 
pronounced, the last louder, much prolonged, and ending plaintively. 
During the love-season, its cry more resembles that of our Pigeon 
Hawk, especially when the males meet, they being apparently tenacious 
of their assumed right to a certain locality, as well as to the female of 
their choice. 
The Marsh Hawk breeds in many parts of the United States, as 
well as beyond our limits to the north and south in which it finds a place 
suited to its habits; as is the case with the Blue-winged Teal, and seve- 
ral other species, which have until now been supposed to retreat to high 
latitudes for the purpose. That many make choice of the more north- 
ern regions, and return southward in autumn, is quite certain ; but in 
all probability an equal number remain within the confines of the United 
States to breed. 
It is by no means restricted to the low lands of the sea-shores 
during the breeding season, for I have found its nest in the Barrens 
of Kentucky, and even on the cleared table-lands of the Alleghany 
Mountains and their spurs. In one instance, I found it in the high- 
covered pine-barrens of the Floridas, although I have never seen one on 
a tree ; and the few cases of its nest having been placed on low trees 
