RED-TAILED HAWK, OR HEN HAWK 



Upper parts dull brown streaked "with reddish-buff and 

 light gray ; lower parts tawny- white streaked with brown ; outer 

 wing- feathers notched; tail chestnut above and gray beneath, 

 having a band of black near the end and tipped with white; 

 beak powerful and hooked ; legs yellow. Length, twenty inches. 

 The female is similar and two inches larger than the male. 



Nest, bulky, in a tree, thirty to a hundred feet from the 

 ground, made of sticks lined with grass and feathers. Eggs, 

 two to four, bluish- white blotched with reddish-brown; 2.30 

 X 1.80 inches. The young are often hatched in March. It is 

 a permanent resident. 



Twenty species of Hawks are found in the United States, 

 several of which, including the Red-tailed, are of great size. 

 When we have learned the habits of one kind, we shall know 

 much about all of them for their characteristics are quite sim- 

 ilar. They belong to the birds of prey. 



They live upon mice and other rodents, small birds, frogs, 

 reptiles and insects. Two varieties, the Sharp-shinned and 

 Cooper's Hawk, are quite destructive to poultry, and because 

 of this the farmers are ready to kill ^ery species of Hawk 

 found on their farms. To them a Hawk is a Hawk and, there- 

 fore, a chicken thief. In many homes the loaded gun hangs 

 in the kitchen ever ready for use if a Hawk sails over the prem- 

 ises. 



This treatment of Hawks is a fatal mistake, for as a class 

 they are of great benefit to the agriculturists. The United 

 States Department of Agriculture estimates that every Hawk 

 destroys a thousand mice or their equivalent in insects annually, 



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