HAWK LIFE 



tiful, are the red-tailed and the red-shouldered — commonly 

 known as hen hawks, though it has been proven that the 

 number of yoimg chickens they destroy is unworthy of notice 

 when compared with the vast number of mice and other small 

 animals which they retire from circulation. To every chicken 

 captured as many as a hundred of the latter are taken. The 

 real menaces to the poultry yard are the sharp-shinned 

 Coopers and the marsh hawk, all of these being able to dart 

 down, secure their booty, and be off before they are noticed. 



The rough-legged, or black hawk, is the most nocturnal 

 of the family, choosing the late evening, when small animals 

 are abroad, as his season of greatest activity. The sparrow 

 hawk, the smallest and, next to the rough-legged, the most 

 graceful member of the family, is the most proficient mouser 

 and an active enemy of the brown grasshopper known as 

 the "tobacco spitter." One bird alone will destroy two him- 

 dred or more of these in a single day. 



Some varieties are watch-tower himters who perch on 

 stiunps, leafless trees, or haystacks, or hang suspended in 

 the air waiting for their victims to pass imder them. Others 

 are brush and grass beaters, while some employ both meth- 

 ods, but all are more or less cannibalistic, and all are valuable 

 as destroyers of harmful animal and insect life. 



With keen eyes exploring the grasses and low, herbace- 

 ous growths for the tiny, helpless creatures either crouching 

 there in fear or peacefully nibbling the succulent roots, back 

 and forth beats the hawk with alternate wing-tips brushing 

 the tops of the vegetation to flush his prey, sending the little 

 refugees scurrying in every direction, or causing them to 

 crouch close to the ground: frightened meadow-mice hide in 

 their covered runways or seek shelter in their domed dwell- 

 ings; wriggling snakes sinuously betake themselves to their 



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