126 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



birds, and saw that the female could tell when the male 

 was coming a long way off. He thought that he fed 

 her and the young all together (?). She would utter a 

 scream when she perceived him, and, rising into the 

 air (before or after the scream?), she turned over 

 with her talons uppermost, while he passed some three 

 rods above, and caught without fail the prey which 

 he let drop, and then carried it to her young. He 

 had seen her do this many times, and always without 

 failing. 



March 24, 1860. I see a male frog hawk beating 

 a hedge, scarcely rising more than two feet from 

 the ground for half a mile, quite below the level 

 of the wall within it. How unlike the hen-hawk in 

 this! 



May 8, 1860. How the marsh hawk circles or skims 

 low, round and round over a particular place in a 

 meadow, where, perhaps, it has seen a frog, screaming 

 once or twice, and then alights on a fence-post ! How 

 it crosses the causeway between the willows, at a gap 

 in them with which it is familiar, as a hen knows a 

 hole in a fence ! I lately saw one flying over the road 

 near our house. 



May 29, 1860. We next proceeded to the marsh 

 hawk's nest from which the eggs were taken a fortnight 

 ago and the female shot. It was in a long and narrow 

 cassandra swamp northwest of the lime-kiln and some 

 thirty rods from the road, on the side of a small and 

 more open area some two rods across, where were few 

 if any bushes and more [?] sedge with the cassandra. 

 The nest was on a low tussock, and about eighteen 



