VOL. i. 



PITTSFIELD, MASS., MARCH, 1888. 



NO. 3. 



Among the Rhaptores. 



BY DR. W. S. STRODE, BERNADOTTE, ILL. 



On the afternoon of March 22d, 1887, I had a collecting experience, the pleasure 

 of which will not soon fade from my memory. Having a professional call to make 

 to see a family residing three miles west of the village of Bernadotte, I thought it 

 a good time while in this section of the country, to take a look for the eggs of the 

 Raptores, there being here a large tract of woodland, jutting out into the sur- 

 rounding prairies, that have escaped the woodman's axe. 



Strapping on my climbers, and putting a ball of stout string in my pocket, 1 

 mounted my horse and started, making my visit. I then turned my attention to 

 looking for nests. 



Away across the fields to the south of the highway, a quarter of a mile, in an 

 eighty acre tracr of timber, I could see in the top of a tree, a large bulky nest of 

 some kind. Leveling a good opera-glass at the structure, it became very plain to 

 me as the nest of a hawk, and I even fancied I could see the head and tail of the 

 bird above the edge of the nest. 



Going through a gate into the field that intervened. I rapidly rode to within a 

 short distance of the tree in which the nest was situated. Tving my horse to a 

 fence, I went over, and throwing a club into the tree, the hawk left the nest; but 

 kept sailing around in near proximity to it. The bird. T soon discovered was not 

 a Red-tail, our most common nester, but a species that I was not sure of, from the 

 imperfect sight which I was able to obtain, as it circled around at a considerable 

 height. 



