
AC Vau EROR. M COR SPP mt^ WE T in LARES, 


RARER BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 515 
year discovered. In 1868 hawks of this species were seen 
about the mountains, and although they reared their young 
there, all effort to discover their nest was ineffectual. The 
present year (1869) they commenced to lay in the old nest- 
ing place, but as they were robbed when but one egg had 
been deposited, they deserted it and chose a site still more 
inaccessible. Here they were equally unfortunate, for during 
à visit to this mountain, in company with Mr. Bennett (April 
28th), we had the great pleasure of discovering their second 
eyrie, and from which, with considerable difficulty, three 
freshly laid eges were obtained. Not discouraged by this 
second misfortune, they nested again, this time depositing 
their eggs in the old eyrie from which all except the last set 
of eggs have been obtained. Again they were unfortunate, 
Mr. Bennett removing their second set of eggs, three in 
number, May 23d, at which time incubation had just com- 
menced. The birds remained about the mountain all the 
summer, and from the anxiety they manifested in August it 
appears not improbable that they laid a third time, and at 
this late period had unfledged young. 
e first set of eges and the female parent, collected 
April 19th, 1864, are in the Museum of Natural History at 
Springfield, as also a male killed subsequently at the same 
locality in April; the second set, collected in April, 1866, 
are in the cabinet of Mr. E. A. Samuels; the third and 
fourth sets, collected April 28th and May 23d, 1869, are in 
that of Dr. William Wood, of East Windsor Hill, Conn. 
Although in each set the different eggs sometimes varied con- 
siderably from each other, neither of the three last present 
that remarkable range of variation exhibited by the first.* 
It is probable that some years more than one pair have 
nested on Mount Tom, but only one nest-site had been 
discovered before the present year. I learn from Dr. Wood 
that this bird is every year seen also about Talcott Mountain, 
* See Proceedings of the Essex Institute, Vol. iv, p. 157. 
