MARSH HAWK. 109 



hovering over the marsh during the whole of our stay, and probably had a 

 nest thereabout. It is rather a cowardly bird however, for on several occa- 

 sions when I was in the Floridas, where it is abundant, I saw it chase a 

 Salt-water Marsh Hen, Rallus crepitans, which courageously sprung up, 

 and striking at its enemy, forced it off. My friend John Bachman has 

 frequently observed similar occurrences in the neighbourhood of Charleston. 

 Whenever it seizes a bird on wing, it almost at once drops to the ground 

 with it, and if in an exposed place, hops off with its prey to the nearest 

 concealment. 



In autumn, after the young have left their parents, they hunt in packs. 

 This I observed on several occasions when on my way back from Labrador. 

 In Nova Scotia, on the 27th of August, we procured nearly a whole pack, 

 by concealing ourselves, but did not see an adult male. These birds are fond 

 of searching for prey over the same fields, removing from one plantation to 

 another, and returning with a remarkable degree of regularity, and this 

 apparently for a whole season, if not a longer period. My friend John 

 Bachman observed a beautiful old male which had one of its primaries cut 

 short by a shot, regularly return to the same rice-field during the whole of 

 the autumn and winter, and believes that the same individual revisits the 

 same spot annually. When satiated with food, the Marsh Hawk may be 

 seen perched on a fence-stake for more than an hour, standing motionless. 

 On horseback I have approached them on such occasions near enough to see 

 the colour of their eyes, before they would reluctantly open their wings, and 

 remove to another stake not far distant, where they would probably remain 

 until digestion was accomplished. 



I have never seen this species searching for food in the dusk. Indeed, in 

 our latitudes, when the orb of day has withdrawn from our sight, the twilight 

 is so short, and the necessity of providing a place of safety for the night so 

 imperious in birds that are not altogether nocturnal, that I doubt whether 

 the Marsh Hawk, which has perhaps been on wing the greater part of the 

 day, and has had many opportunities of procuring food, would continue its 

 flight for the sake of the scanty fare which it might perchance procure at a 

 time when few birds are abroad, and when quadrupeds only are awakening 

 from their daily slumber. 



Wilson must have been misinformed by some one unacquainted with the 

 arrival and departure of this species, as well as of the Rice Bird, in South 

 Carolina, when he was induced to say that the Marsh Hawk "is particularly 

 serviceable to the rice-fields of the Southern States, by the havoc it makes 

 among the clouds of Rice Buntings that spread such devastation among the 

 grain, in its early stages. As it sails low, and swiftly, over the surface of 

 the field, it keeps the flocks in perpetual fluctuation, and greatly interrupts 



