The "Hen Hawk" 321 



The nest of this hawk is to be found in high trees in 

 the deep woods; it is a bulky affair, but quite shallow, 

 being composed of sticks and roots often a foot or 

 more in length, with a good mixture of coarse grass, 

 while the inside has a sparse lining of moss and a 

 few feathers. 



One August day, as I was tramping through a 

 marshy place in a piece of woods, I accidentally 

 surprised a red-tailed hawk which was probably hunt- 

 ing for frogs or other food. Only a few days before, 

 I had seen a hawk of this species within a short 

 distance of where I surprised this one. On the 

 day that I saw the second hawk, in a clearing on the 

 edge of the swamp, I came upon a boy setting some 

 traps by a stump, and scattering about them the 

 waste parts of a fowl and also of a woodchuck. I 

 was interested to know what was his object in doing 

 this, and he told me that skunks from the neighbor- 

 ing woods were troubling his chickens. 



I inquired of him if he had seen any hawks about, 

 and why he beHeved that it was skunks and not hawks 

 which had caught his chickens. He answered me 

 by saying that as they were taken only at night, it 

 could not be the work of hawks, although they were 

 plentiful in the swamp. 



From what I had seen of the hawks in this vicinity, 



