The Marsh Hawk 
31 
Care of 
Y oung 
spotted with brown or amber, and more rarely a specimen will have a large 
blotch of rusty brown. Incubation continues for nearly four weeks, and 
the young, when hatched, are covered with whitish down. The females 
are very close sitters, and usually will not rise from the eggs until closely 
approached, so that the finding of the nest is by no means easy. The 
young stay in or near the nest three weeks or more, and then for some 
time accompany the parents, so that the family party may be seen about 
the marsh where the young were reared until well 
into the autumn. Both parents bring food to the nest- 
lings, and are very solicitous for their welfare, 
especially when newly hatched, frequently swooping at an intruder in a 
menacing manner. The young themselves, before they are able to leave 
the nest, are pugnacious little fellows, and make a bold stand against 
any close investigation, striking out bravely with talons and beak. 
No one at all familiar with the larger hawks can fail to identify the 
Marsh Hawk on sight ; and therefore no one can plead mistaken identity 
as an excuse for killing it. Its long tail and wings, its peculiar wing- 
beats, and, especially, the large white patch on the rump, are unmistakable 
marks. 
Few birds are more graceful in flight than the Marsh Hawk. Anyone 
much a-field in the autumn is sure to see one or more of these hawks 
seeking food. On wings unusually long for the size of the body, one of. 
these splendid creatures will come sweeping slowly and evenly along 
over the brown fields, usually within a few yards of the ground until, 
at a fence or thicket, it will rise high enough to pass 
over the obstruction, and then, sinking again to within 
five or ten feet of the earth, will continue its course. 
It drops on its prey with incredible swiftness, and usually devours what 
it takes on the spot of capture, when it is not to be carried to its mate 
or offspring. 
During the nesting-season this hawk often flies apparently for pure 
joy in flying, wheeling, circling, and tumbling heels over head high in 
the air, with occasional arrow-like descents almost to the ground, followed 
by a quick upward course, suggesting to observers the “stunts” of daring 
aeroplanists. 
Those Marsh Hawks that have passed the summer north of the middle 
parts of the United States migrate in winter south of about the 40th 
parallel of latitude. Audubon refers to this in his “Birds of America” 
as follows : 
Graceful 
Flight 
I have observed it in our western prairies in autumn moving in flocks 
of twenty, thirty, or even so many as forty individuals, 
and appearing to be migrating, as they passed along Migration 
at a height of fifty or sixty yards, without paying any 
attention to the objects below; but I could never find that they were 
bent on any general course more than another, as some days a flock would 
be proceeding southward, on the next to the northward or eastward. 
Many times have I seen them follow the grassy margins of our great 
