OUR HOME BIRDS. 
303 
them are sitting. They flutter among the branches, 
frequently hanging by the cones, and uttering a note 
almost exactly like that of the goldfinch. The pine- 
finch is only four inches long, and has a great deal 
of yellow in his plumage, mixed with black and 
brown. 
“ The winter falcon or hawk picks up a living by 
catching frogs, and, 4 that he may pursue his profes- 
sion with full effect, takes up his winter residence 
almost entirely among our meadows and marshes. 
He sometimes stuffs himself so enormously with 
these reptiles that the prominency of his craw 
makes a large bunch, and he appears to fly with 
difficulty/ 
“This hawk is twenty inches long, has a white 
breast, marked with long drops of brown, and the 
rest of its plumage is brown, black, and white, with 
a mixture of brownish-orange. It makes its nest in 
the top of a tall tree, and forms a bulky mass of dry 
sticks and Spanish moss, lined with withered grass 
and fibrous roots arranged in a circular manner. 
There are four or five pale-blue eggs, faintly blotched 
with brownish-red at the small end. ‘ It is a remark- 
ably silent bird, often spending the greater part of 
the day without uttering its notes more than once 
or twice, which it does just before it alights to watch 
