In the Woods. 199 



This is essentially a woodland hawk, and feeds mainly on small animals, 

 such as mice, frogs, and insects, rarely preying upon birds. It is one of the 

 commoner hawks, and in the fall migrations, when they become gregarious, 

 sometimes enormous flocks may be seen, passing southward, high in the air. 



This is a bird of both woodland and open, and while not perhaps as 



much of a field hunter as the Red-tailed Hawk, yet is frequently seen on the 



Red-shouldered '^^o^ed borders of meadows. He is one of the so-called 



Hawk. " Chicken Hawks," but is really no enemy to the farmer, 



Buteo lineatus (Gmei.). as careful investigation has shown that small animals such 



as field mice, shrews, frogs, etc., form by far the larger part of his diet. He 



is not a bird or chicken hawk, but a mouse hunter. 



You will know him in any plumage by his reddish shoulders. Sometimes 

 in immature birds this marking may be somewhat obscured, and it is always 

 duller in these than in birds in full plumage, but it is always present. The 

 adult birds are very striking, being characterized by black or dusky wing and 

 tail feathers, the former with many, the latter with four or five white bars, and 

 a white tip. The lower parts except the throat, which is streaked with dusky, 

 vary from very bright to dull burnt sienna, barred with narrow stripes of pure 

 white. The upper parts are dusky brownish suffused with gray, and each 

 feather is more or less edged with reddish brown or buff, parts . of the 

 shoulders being bright reddish brown, as described before. 



In immature birds the upper parts are much the same, but the wings and 

 tail are dark grayish brown, both with obscure bars of dusky black. The red 

 on the shoulders is not so bright, and it is less extensive. The under parts 

 are white or grayish streaked with dusky. 



They breed in trees from twenty-five to seventy-five feet from the ground, 

 and lay from three to six dull white eggs marked more or less profusely with 

 specks and blotches of reddish brown and umber. These are two inches and 

 an eighth long, and about an inch and seven tenths broad. 



The birds are found throughout Eastern North America as far north as 

 Manitoba and Nova Scotia, and south to the Gulf States. They are resident 

 through most of this area, and breed throughout their range. 



The Florida Red-shouldered Hawk is the geographical form or race, tak- 

 incr the place of the Red-shouldered Hawk on the Atlantic coast, as far north 



