MARSH HAWK. 401 
the ground with it, and if in an exposed place, hops off with its prey 
to the nearest concealment. 
In autumn, after the young have left their parents, they hunt in 
packs. This I observed on several occasions when on my way back from 
Labrador. In Nova Scotia, on the 27th of August, we procured nearly 
a whole pack, by concealing ourselves, but did not see an adult male. 
These birds are fond of searching for prey over the same fields, remov- 
ing from one plantation to another, and returning with a remarkable 
degree of regularity, and this apparently for a whole season, if not a 
longer period. My friend Jonn Bacumawn observed a beautiful old 
male which had one of its primaries cut short by a shot, regularly re- 
turn to the same rice-field during the whole of the autumn and winter, 
and believes that the same individual revisits the same spot annually. 
When satiated with food, the Marsh Hawk may be seen perched ona 
fence-stake for more than an hour, standing motionless. On horseback 
I have approached them on such occasions near enough to see the co- 
lour of their eyes, before they would reluctantly open their wings, and 
remove to another stake not far distant, where they would probably re- 
main until digestion was accomplished. 
I have never seen this species searching for food in the dusk. [n- 
deed, in our latitudes, when the orb of day has withdrawn from our 
sight, the twilight is so short, and the necessity of providing a place of 
safety for the night so imperious in birds that are not altogether noctur- 
nal, that I doubt whether the Marsh Hawk, which has perhaps been on 
wing the greater part of the day, and has had many opportunities of pro- 
euring food, would continue its flight for the sake of the scanty fare 
which it might perchance procure at a time when few birds are abroad, 
and when quadrupeds only are awakening from their daily slumber. 
Witson must have been misinformed by some one unacquainted 
with the arrival and departure of this species, as well as of the Rice 
Bird, in South Carolina, when he was induced to say that the Marsh 
Hawk “ is particularly serviceable to the rice-fields of the Southern 
States, by the havoc it makes among the clouds of Rice Buntings that 
spread such devastation among the grain, in its early stages. As it 
sails low, and swiftly, over the surface of the field, it keeps the flocks 
in perpetual fluctuation, and greatly interrupts their depredations. The 
planters consider one Marsh Hawk to be equal to several Negroes for 
VOL. IV. C.€ 
