The Sharp-shinned Hawk 



of a stranger is marked by uneasy cries, eh - eh - eh - eh - eh. When the 

 female is flushed, both birds will circle about with incessant protest, and 

 will even dash at the head of the investigator in most reckless fashion. 

 Repeated visits will not allay their anxiety, and a favorite enemy will be 

 decried, as Saunders has reminded us, 1 a half mile from home. 



Incubation is accomplished in about 31 days, or if it has commenced 

 with the laying of the first egg, as is often the case, then the last egg may 

 not hatch for a week longer. While the female is brooding the young, she 

 is frequently fed by the male from a considerable height. Dr. Lynds 

 Jones relates one such instance in which an element of sportiveness 

 appeared to enter in: "Once during the breeding season I saw a male 

 catch a large garter snake and fly up with it several hundred feet, then 

 drop it to the female who just then came flying along near the ground. 

 She caught it and carried it to the nest, followed by the male." 



The young, after leaving the nest, hunt for several months with their 

 parents, and the last and costliest lesson which they learn is fear of man. 

 If these most excellent mousers had half the gratitude shown to them 

 which we manifest toward cats, they might be abundant where they are 

 now rare. Without question the past thirty years have shown a marked 

 decrease in the abundance of this species in the West. The Marsh Hawk 

 is partially and irregularly migratory, but it is now seldom seen hereabouts 

 save during migrations, whereas Cooper reported it 2 as "one of the most 

 abundant of hawks." 



No. 327 



Sharp-shinned Hawk 



A. O. U. No. 332. Accipiter velox (Wilson). 



Synonyms. — "Sparrow" Hawk. Bird Hawk. 



Description. — Adult: Above slaty gray, dark plumbeous, or chocolate-brown, 

 with a glaucous cast, darker but not black on head; occipital feathers, scapulars, and 

 inner quills with concealed white at base; primaries banded with two shades of fuscous 

 above, contrasting dusky and whitish below; tail, nearly square, slightly emarginate, 

 crossed by five dusky bands, and narrowly whitish at tip, the basal band concealed 

 and nearly obsolete; auriculars rusty, with black shaft-lines; throat whitish or pale 

 buffy with blackish shafts; remaining underparts white, heavily barred on breast, 

 belly, sides, axillaries, and shanks with pale cinnamon-rufous — quite variable, clay- 

 color, tawny-olive or snuff-brown — feathers of breast with blackish shaft-lines; lining 

 of wings rusty-tinged, finely and irregularly barred with dusky; crissum unmarked, 



1 Condor. Vol. XV.. May, 1913, p. 100. 



2 Geological Survey of California, Vol. I., Ornithology (1870), p. 491. 



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