OF VIRGINIA 115 
rabbits, squirrels and moles, occasionally a small green 
snake and bull frogs. They also destroy a lot of obnoxious 
insects, beetles, grasshoppers, and eaterpillars also being 
on their bill of. fare. Nests with young visited by me 
have had most of the above food at different times lying 
around the rim of the nest. One pair of hawks had sup- 
plied their voung, judging by the remains, three half- 
grown rabbits in one day. The young Red-shouldered 
Hawks are easily raised; numerous times I have done so 
with just raw beef and mice as a diet. They can not be 
tamed to any extent, and, should one discontinue handling 
them for a week, they become very wild and fierce, as 
though you had never touched or fed them before. The 
nest is a well-made affair of small sticks, dry leaves and 
strips of bark, and lined with pine tags, fine bark strips, 
cedar or spruce foliage, and generally, after cggs are 
deposited, green leaves of the oak or maple may be found. 
A few years back they invariably bred in the main 
crotches of oak and black-gum trees; nowadays they 
resort to live pines mostly. The height of nests varies 
from twenty-five to fifty feet above ground, and is not far 
distant from some small swampy ravine or marsh. Two 
to four eggs are laid, April 1st to 10th, ground color, 
grayish-white, spotted and blotched with various shades of 
brown. Only one brood a season. Size of eggs, 2.15x1.75. 
[343]. Buteo platypterus (Vieilot). Broad-winged 
Hawk, 
Raner.—Eastern North America. Breeds from central 
Alberta, southeastern Saskatchewan, northern Ontario, 
New Brunswick, and Cape Breton Island south to the Gulf 
