516 NOTES ON SOME OF THE 
obtained from it in 1862 Dr. Wood kept till the following 
fall, when they were sent to Professor Baird, and died at the 
Smithsonian Institution the succeeding spring. Mr. G. A. 
Boardman informs me that the Duck Hawk in summer keeps 
about the islands in the Bay of Fundy, and " breeds upon the 
high cliffs all along this bay.*” 
As stated by me elsewhere,t the Duck Hawks repair to 
Mount Tom very early in the spring, and for a month or six 
weeks, as Mr. Bennett informs me, carefully watch and de- 
fend their eyrie. They often manifest. even more alarm at 
this early period when it is approached than they do later 
when it contains eggs or young. 
Sparrow Hawk. Falco sparverius Linn. In reference to 
this species, Dr. Wood communicates the following interest- 
ing fact. “A few years since a pair of Sparrow Hawks 
attacked and killed a pair of doves and took possession of 
the dove cot and laid four eggs. Being too familiar with the 
farmer's chickens they were shot, and I had the good fortune 
to obtain two of the eggs." 
Gosmawk. Astur atricapillus Bon. This species varies 
most remarkably in the number of its representatives seen 
in different years, and also in the same season at localities 
in Southern New England not far apart. Some winters— 
the only season at which it is usually seen in Massachusetts 
—it is extremely rare, while the next it may be one of the 
most numerous species of its family. In years when it is 
generally common some of our most careful observers do 
not meet with it. Dr. Wood writes me, under date of 
October 22d, 1868, that with him "it has been a very rare 
winter visitor until the last winter, when they were more 
common than any of our rapacious birds. I mounted five 
specimens and sent away several for exchanges. 1 think 
twenty were shot within a radius of five miles. I have 
= resided at East Windsor Hill twenty-one yor anl bare 
* In epist., Sept. 19, 1864 
t Proceedings of the Essex Institute, Vol. iv. p. 155. 





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