596 ON THE NESTING OF CERTAIN HAWES, ETC. 
is no telling where they came from or how far they might float 
150, or 200 miles perhaps. Thus is scattered the species over 
vast districts, which, no doubt, is the object of their aeronautic 
journey. : 
When they intend to make an ascension, they fix themselves on 
some extreme point of the branch of a tree, or weed or corm tassel; 
there carefully spin out a lock of white gossamer five or six inches 
long and two inches wide in the middle, tapering towards the ends; 
holding it all the time in the gentle breeze by a thread two or three 
inches long, which, being attached to the end of the selected 
point, detains the balloon until it is finished. They then spin out 
at the bow two lines thirty or forty feet in length, another at the 
stern twenty or thirty feet long, then cut the cable and float briskly 
upwards and forwards on an inclined plane. 
I once observed one of these spiders at work on the upper corner 
of an open, outside door shutter. She was spinning gossamer, 
which, she was forming a balloon; and clinging to her thorax was 
a little cluster of minute, young spiders. She finished up the body 
of the balloon; threw out the long bow lines, which were flappiné 
` and fluttering on the now gently increasing breeze, several minutes 
before she got all ready for the ascension. She seemed pe 
fixing the bottom and widening her hammock-shaped balloon. “"" 
now the breeze being suitable, she moved to the cable in the stern, 
severed it, and her craft bounded upwards and soaring wee 
northwards, was soon beyond the scope of my observation. isi 
was standing near when it was preparing to cast loose the cab wh 
and had thought I would arrest its flight but it bounded away" 
such a sudden hop, that I missed and it was gone. 
ON THE NESTING OF CERTAIN HAWKS, ETO- 
BY DR. ELLIOTT COUES, U. 8. A+ 
Is a recent number of the Narurauisr I gave some a¢ "bot ba e 
the nidification of Swainson’s buzzard (Buteo Swainsoni),? iste 
nothing to say of the eggs, as I took the field last me aod 
for them. The present year I have secured numerous a 
