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Volvime XV 
May-Jvine, 1*513 
Number 3 
A STUDY OF THE NESTING OF I'ME MARSH HAWK 
By ARETAS A. SAUNDERS 
WITH SIX PHOTOS BY THE AETTHOR 
I N THE prairie portion of Teton County, Montana, the Marsh Hawk 
(Circus hndsonius) is the most abundant of all the hawks. During the nest- 
ing season of 1912 I was fortunate in finding a nest of this species so close to 
town (Chouteau, Montana) that I could make observations upon it almost daily, 
in the near vicinity of this nest was one of the Short-eared Owl. an owl that is 
almost equally abundant with the Marsh Hawk in this region. iMy observatfons 
on the nesting of the Short-eared Owl are elsewhere recorded in the pages of 
The Condor (this issue, page i20- The nesting habits of the two species are in 
general quite similar, each being tbe only North American species of its family 
that nests on the ground. In comparing the two species, however, I found that 
while the general nesting habits are much alike, in many of the details they are 
cjuite dissimilar. 
The Marsh Hawk arrives in this region usually some time in the month of 
April, adult males usually being seen a week or two in advance of the females. 
Courtship evidently begins as soon as tbe females arrive, and may be witnessed 
frequently during the latter part of April and early May. I have usually ob- 
served it along the borders of a stream, where a group of cottonwood trees flank 
a broad open meadow. The female sits in one of the cottonwood trees and watch- 
es the performance of her mate. He flies back and forth across the meadow at 
a height varying from about fifteen to fifty feet above tbe ground. He first flies 
upward with much flapping of his wings till he reaches the fifty-foot height, then 
turns in the air with a curious motion that displays first the white rump and then 
the white of the wing-linings and underparts, and flaps down again to the fifteen- 
foot level. Then he turns and rises again, and continues thus, up and down. 
