204 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



Mr. L. Belding reports Harris's Hawk as common at the Cape region of 

 Lower California, where he frequently met with it in May, along the route 

 from San Jose" del Cabo to Miraflores. He also found it within 40 miles of 

 San Diego, California. Mr. Walter E. Bryant saw one at San Jorge, and again 

 near San Juan, where a pair had built in a giant cactus, Cereus. On April 6, 

 1889, he found a nest at San Grregorio, built on the top of a bush, Atamisquea 

 emarginata. The nest was rather flat, composed of sticks and lined with grass 

 and orchilla. It measured about 2 feet in diameter. It contained two eggs, 

 which were secured, one quite fresh, the other with a small embryo. One of 

 the eggs is white, the other pale greenish white. 1 



The number of eggs varies from two to four, usually three, and these are 

 mostly oval in shape, a few are ovate, and an exceptional one is short ovate. 

 The shell is lusterless and fairly smooth. The ground color is a dead dirty 

 white; perfectly fresh specimens show a slight greenish tint occasionally. 

 The eggs are usually more or less nest-stained, and some of these stains 

 might readily be mistaken for markings. 



A careful examination of twenty-eight specimens in the U. S. National 

 Museum collection shows that about one-half of these egg are unmarked, the 

 remainder are spotted with small irregular blotches of pale cinnamon in some 

 cases and fawn color in others, while some, again, are lavender colored. Only 

 one shade of markings is found on each egg, and none are heavily marked. 

 One of the specimens figured shows the most pronounced markings in the 

 series; in the others they are less distinct, and in some so faint as to be 

 barely noticeable. The eggs are deposited at intervals of several days, but 

 incubation commences as soon as the first egg is laid, and lasts about four 

 weeks. In southern Texas sets of four eggs are by no means rare, while in 

 Arizona and Lower California two seem to be the rule. 



The average measurement of the specimens in the U. S. National Museum 

 collection is 54 by 42 millimetres. The largest egg of the series measures 57.5 

 by 44.5, the smallest 49 by 38.5 millimetres. 



The type specimen, No. 20757 (PI. 6, Fig. 3), from the Merrill collection, 

 is the most distinctly marked egg in the series, and was collected by Asst. Surg. 

 James C. Merrill, U. S. Army, near Fort Brown, Texas. No. 22572, selected 

 from a set of four, an unmarked specimen (PI. 6, Fig. 4), was taken near Cor- 

 pus Christi, Texas, on March 30, 1883, and obtained in exchange from Capt. 

 B. F. Gross, of Pewaukee, Wisconsin. 



1 Proceedings Academy Sciences of California, 2d series, Vol. n, 1889, p. 279. 



