54 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



June 18th. — At place at 3.30 a.m. A little before 4, which 

 is a little earlier than the usual time, T heard the cry of the 

 female (as I think), who alone sits, and between this and about 6 

 I caught sight of either one or both the birds in the plantation, 

 but have nothing further to note. 



June 30th.— At plantation about 3.30 a.m., and sat down at 

 the foot of hawk's nesting tree. Some time before 4 — perhaps 

 3.45, perhaps earlier — the bird went off. It flew into a tree 

 near by, where it uttered its cry, and then, almost immediately, 

 into another one, in that part of the plantation where it has 

 always gone, before, on thus first going off in the morning, and 

 which I think was the very one where I had last seen it make its 

 breakfast. In my present position, the foliage hid it from view, 

 but in just about the time that it took before, the meal, if there 

 was one, was finished, and the bird flew straight back to the nest, 

 and covered. It is clear that she flew to this tree with a definite 

 purpose, and, having accomplished it, returned, at once, to her 

 incubatory duties. That this purpose was the breaking of her 

 fast, I have very little doubt, but I can hardly believe that she 

 had first caught a bird, for she was only out of my sight for a 

 moment or two in the first tree that she flew into, and though I 

 could not see her in the next (where I suppose her to have been 

 feeding), she must have been stationary, as I saw just where she 

 had settled. If she did make a capture in either of these trees 

 it must have been with wonderful ease and celerity, but what 

 seems to me more likely (judging by what I have already seen) is 

 that in either the one or the other was a dead bird from the 

 night before — that these, instead of being stored regularly in 

 some special place for the purpose, are deposited in various 

 places. 



At about 7, as I was making the above entry, I heard tlie 

 hawk's cry, and, putting down tablet and stylus, marked it enter 

 a tree, and then, stealing quietly nearer, saw it making a meal. 

 I saw the object — which suggested, but not more, a small bird's 

 body, and this was not finished when the bird flew off, nor could 

 I then see it in her claws.* The hawk now flew from tree to 



* From this I thought, at the time, that it was left on the bough, but it 

 may have been a mere fragment, which, as on other occasions, escaped my 

 notice, when carried, See ante, 



