BIRDS OF NOETHERN CANADA 355 



colour, French gray, and drab-gray. With hut very few 

 exceptions, none of the eggs are heavily marked ; about one- 

 half are, however, moderately well spotted." 



The Ottawa Museum contains four birds and a nest taken 

 near Edmonton, with two eggs, in 1897, and another with 

 two, built in a poplar tree, and composed of small sticks lined 

 with bark and twigs, in 1888, at Chatham, Ontario. 



347a. Ameeicajst Rough-legged Hawk — Archibuteo lago- 

 pus sancti-johannis (Gmelin). 



In the spring of 1889, a male example of this hawk was 

 shot near Fort St. James, Stuart's Lake. Although no 

 nests were found in Athabasca or Cumberland districts, yet 

 it is probable that a few stra^ler pairs breed in the northern 

 sections of both. In the Anderson River region, however, 

 no less than seventy nests were discovered. About fifty-five 

 of them were built in the crotches of the tallest trees, not 

 far from the top, and at a height of from twenty to thirty 

 feet from the ground. They were composed of small sticks 

 and twigs, and comfortably lined with hay, moss, down and 

 feathers. The remaining fifteen were placed near the edge 

 of steep cliffs of shelving rock, or on the face of deep ravines 

 and other declivitous river banks, and in make they were 

 somewhat similar to the forgoing. The eggs varied between 

 four and five, never more than the latter number. The par- 

 ents invariably manifested great uneasiness, and frequently 

 gave utterance to vociferous screams of anger and distress, 

 when their nests were approached. Early in June, 1864, 

 one of our Indian employees found a nest containing three 

 eggs on a high ledge of bituminous shale, and as the rule 

 was to secure the parent bird in all possible cases for identifi- 

 cation, having missed killing both, he placed a snare about 

 the nest; but on going to visit it later in the day he was 

 disgusted at finding the snare set aside, the eggs gone, and 

 the birds not to be seen ; but as there were no shell remains, 

 he presumed that they had removed the eggs to a safer posi- 



