THE OOLOGIST. 



139 



half-breed whom the misguided sheriff 

 of the county had given a star and who 

 lost no opportunity to kill such game 

 as he wanted, in season or out, irre- 

 spective of State laws or county or- 

 dinances. Of course we turned back, 

 but a day or two later Bradford and his 

 younger brother went up the canyon 

 on foot and collected five or six (I no 

 longer remember the exact number) 

 as fine sets of Hawks, Red-tailed and 

 Swainson's as I ever saw. This was 

 evening matters with a vengeance, and 

 since then we have been in the habit 

 of collecting with impunity almost in 

 this fellow's door yard. I have all 

 kinds of respect for a game warden who 

 does his duty, but for any law-breaking 

 rascal like this, whose sole claim to 

 standing as an officer rests on his pull 

 with the county's executive I have less 

 than for a professional poacher. 



But I wander, as usual. After this 

 we turned back down the river bed, 

 and, leaving the horse and rig well 

 hidden in the larger trees beside the 

 road we plunged into the dense growth 

 of willows which every where clothes 

 the sandy bed of this stream. Here 

 and there throughout this bottom land 

 rise tall solitary willows, their heads 

 raised well above the surrounding forest 

 and the haven of their branches the nest- 

 ing sites of countless Orioles, Fly- 

 catchers, Hummingbirds, etc. Now 

 and again some Hawk, usually a red- 

 bellied builds a bulky nest in one of 

 them and time was when the Kites, now 

 so scarce in the sonthwest, were compar- 

 atively common here. The most we 

 hoped for this time, however was a set 

 of two or three Red-bellied Hawk's 

 eggs. Most all the afternoon we kept 

 at it, finding a number of abandoned 

 nests in various degrees of despair, 

 and taking one badly incubated set of 

 six Long-eared Owls from an old Crow's 

 nest in the top of an unusually tall 

 willow— one which would never have 

 been climbed had we not hoped to find 



the small Hawks at home here. As it 

 was the Owls made a desirable addition 

 to my cabinet and served as well to 

 revive somewhat flagging hopes. The 

 day wore on, however, and beyond the 

 taking of an occasional set by my com- 

 panion or myself from some one of the 

 many occupied smaller nests that we 

 found there was nothing doing. Among 

 these were two or three fine sets of the 

 Ash-throated Flycatcher, which fell to 

 him. Indeed I have never yet been 

 to take a set of the prettv and attractive 

 eggs. At last all our day slipped away 

 and as nearly as we could judge from 

 our position in the tangle, we headed 

 for the buggy. Inadvertently I leaned 

 rather heavily against a leafy willow, 

 somewhat larger than its surrounding 

 mates and heard the peculiar sound 

 made by a Hawk as she leaves her nest. 

 From the ground no bunch of sticks 

 could be seen, but it was the work of 

 less than a moment to "shin" up that 

 tree. And there sure enough was the 

 nest, small and round, but not so 

 compact as previous homes of the 

 western species of the Red-shouldered 

 with which I had had dealings before, 

 so I was not so much snrprised after 

 all when I raised myself up even with 

 the edge of the nest to see four pale 

 blue 1 eggs, unmistakably those of 

 Cooper's Hawk, the first I had ever 

 seen in their nests, and, as you may 

 imagine, an interesting sight to any 

 western collector. Thus by accident I 

 became acquainted with this species as 

 well as with Swainson's of which I 

 wrote in my previous article. I know 

 that Cooper's Hawk is quite common 

 back there where most of the boys who 

 will read this live, and you may wonder 

 at my going home well contented with 

 so small a "take," but you must re- 

 member that Cooper's is a rara avis 

 out here, and "personally collected" 

 sets are not at all common. 

 (To be continued.) 



