OF VIRGINIA 107 
as many as six chickens a day carried away by one of these 
birds, and a friend farming not far from me reports the 
loss of eight in one day by one bird. During the spring 
and fall migrations they are quite numerous, and through- 
out the summer, one or two are occasionally seen. During 
the spring migration northward large numbers pass 
through this section, April 3rd to 11th. Its food con- 
sists almost entirely of small poultry and birds, while now 
and then small snakes, mice, and insects form a variation 
of their bill of fare. The varieties of birds usually repre- 
sented in their stomachs are the sparrows, warblers, 
juncos and goldfinches. The nest is composed of dry 
sticks, leaves and twigs, with inner surface of strips of 
inner bark of the juniper, cedar, cypress, or pine, placed 
in a thick live pine or cedar, or cypress, from twenty to 
thirty feet up. Sometimes the birds rebuild an old crow’s 
nest. Four to five eggs is a full set, generally beautifully 
colored, and showing a wide variation in both size and 
color of markings. The ground color of the eggs is bluish- 
or greenish-white, blotched and spotted with various 
shades of brown and lavender. Size 1.45x1.15. Fresh 
eges May 10th to 20th. Only one brood a season. Like 
the Sparrow Hawk, one sees him more often when driving 
along the country roads, perched on top of the telephone 
poles, often flying from one to another just ahead of your 
conveyance, for four or five posts, and then off to the 
field in a low flight three or four feet above the ground, 
alighting on the top of some small, near-by bush or low 
tree. Some counties still pay a bounty of fifty cents for 
hawk scalps. One of this species are well worth it to the 
county, but it is generally some luckless Marsh or Broad- 
winged Hawk the bounty is paid on. Many pass through 
this section September 15th to 25th, the height of the 
fall migration. 
