WINTER HAWK. ^ 1^ 365 



but merely visits them, making its first appearance there at the approach 

 of winter. It extends over the whole Union, from the eastern to the 

 southernmost parts, but gives a decided preference to the Middle Districts, 

 where the greater number spend the winter. They come from the north- 

 ern portions of the continent, where they breed, and from whence they 

 seem to be forced by the severity of the weather, to seek subsistence for 

 a time in milder climates. They return at the approach of spring, and 

 none, in as far as I have been able to discover, remain to breed in the 

 United States. 



The flight of the Winter Hawk is smooth and light, although greatly 

 protracted, when necessity requires it to be so. It sails at times at a con- 

 siderable elevation, and, notwithstanding the comparative shortness of its 

 wings, performs this kind of motion with grace, and in circles of more 

 than moderate diameter. It is a remarkably silent bird, often spending 

 the greater part of a day without uttering its notes more than once or 

 twice, which it does just before it alights to watch with great patience and 

 perseverance for the appearance of its prey. Its haunts are the extensive 

 meadows and marshes which occur along our rivers. There it pounces 

 with a rapid motion on the frogs, which it either devours on the spot, or 

 carries to the perch, or the top of the hay-stack, on which it previously 

 stood. If it seizes a small frog, it swallows it whole and at once ; but if 

 a large one, it first tears it to pieces. The appetite of the Winter Hawk 

 may be said to be ravenous. It seldom gives up eating, when food is 

 plentiful, until it has gorged itself so as to seem on the point of being 

 suffocated. At such times, it flies heavily, but removes farther at once 

 from a person who pursues it, than when its stomach is empty, as if at one 

 effort to ensure its safety, and afterwards enjoy the digestion of its food 

 in quiet. 



When frogs are scarce during frosty weather, the Winter Hawk pur- 

 sues the meadow mouse, but only in such cases, frogs being the favourite 

 food of tliis species. I have seen it when disappointed in seizing a large 

 bull-frog, which had saved itself by leaping into the water, stand on the 

 spot previously occupied by the reptile, and wait until it reappeared and 

 approached the shore, when the Hawk would strike at it with his talons, 

 although seldom successfully, as the frog would sink backward, and thus 

 escape. 



Mr Alexander Wilson has given a figure so unlike any bird of this 

 species, for one of the Winter Falcons, that although he has at the same 



