
396 THE RED-TAILED HAWK. 
winged one of these birds his dog ran up to it, when his 
nasal appendage was firmly seized by the enraged bird. 
Smarting under the chastisement he howled and yelled, sha- 
king his antagonist with force enough, apparently, to dislo- 
cate every bone in its body. This was continued sometime 
before its claws were disengaged, when my informant said 
"that the dog's nose looked as though it had been chawed.” 
They formerly nested here, but I have not been able to 
find a nest for the last fifteen years. The nest is large and 
somewhat flat, composed mostly of sticks and twigs, and 
generally located where it is almost impossible to get at it. 
According to our writers on oólogy they lay from four to 
five eggs. This is a larger number than I have found; from 
two to four has been the usual number. They are dull 
white, sparsely covered with brown and dark-brown spots. 
Both birds assist during incubation. Its length is from 
nineteen to twenty-four inches, and the expanse of the wings 
from forty-five to fifty inches. The female is considerably 
larger than the male, as is the case with all our rapacious 
birds. The head of the adult is large and flat; the tip of 
the bill much incurved, with the entire upper parts brown, 
with.fulvous edging on the head. and neck. The tail is 
bright rufous, tipped with white, and a little rounded, with 
the subterminal band of black. The throat is white with 
longitudinal strips of brown; the under parts are yellowish 
white with longitudinal brown spots. The under tail-coverts 
are yellowish white, the legs are yellow, and the iris, hazel. 
In the young the upper parts are lighter brown than in the 
adult, with more white and fulvous spots; the tail has some 
nine or ten transverse brownish black bands and is tipped 
with white; the subterminal band is about an inch wide; the 
under parts are white with large ovate spots of brownish 
black; the under tail-coverts are spotted with brown. The 
‘smaller wing-coverts, from its flexure to the body, are rufous, 
‘and similar to the Red-shouldered Hawk, only not as bright 



