80 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



George F. Guelf of Brockport has called to my attention that a considerable 

 flight of these hawks often occurs during the third week in March not far 

 from the southern shore of Lake Ontario, the birds moving toward the 

 eastward and recalling the similar flights of Sharp-shinned, Cooper, 

 Marsh and Broad-winged hawks which occur a little later in the season, 

 Audubon, during his visit to western New York, found this hawk nesting 

 near Niagara Falls, but since that time very few evidences of the Goshawk 

 breeding in our State have been recorded. In June 1877, Roosevelt and 

 Minot observed it in Franklin county; Merriam in 1881 ranked it as a 

 rare resident of the Adirondack region; in June 1905, I observed two of 

 these hawks near the Upper Ausable lake in Essex county; and Ralph and 

 Bagg have given us a definite breeding record for the Adirondacks, May 9, 

 1898. Fortunately, however, this bird is rare as a summer resident, even 

 in the wildest portions of the Adirondack forest. 



Habits. This is the most dreaded scourge of our grouse coverts and 

 poultry yards. Fierce, daring and more powerful than the Cooper hawk, 

 it seizes and carries off full-grown fowls with such ease, and makes its 

 attacks so suddenly and unexpectedly that flight by the intended victim 

 and resistance by the outraged farmer are alike useless. Both the examina- 

 tion of the stomach contents of specimens secured and the testimony of 

 hunters and naturalists who have observed this bird and its nesting sites, 

 agree in establishing the Goshawk's unenviable character. Grouse, pheas- 

 ants, poultry, hares and other larger animals are its usual food. The 

 Goshawk's nest is usually placed in a birch, beech or poplar tree and 

 resembles that of the Cooper hawk in construction. The eggs are from 

 3 to 5 in number, ovate or elliptical-ovate in shape, and white or pale 

 bluish white in color, about 2.30 by 1.74 inches, and are laid about the 

 1st of May. 



