Nesting of the Broad-winged Hawk i^Btiteo penn syl vanicus ) . — As but 
very few of the nests of this species have been described, an account of 
one taken by myself, about two miles north of this city, on June 23, 1883, 
may not be considered superfluous. It was built in a large yellow birch 
tree, near the margin of a rather open wood, which was composed of 
mixed birch, spruce, and hackmatac, and which adjoined a dense cedar 
swamp. The nest was placed in a fork of the tree, about thirty feet from 
the ground, and was composed, exteriorly, of dried twigs of hackmatac and 
birch, with a sparse lining of straw and feathers. In it wefe two eggs, 
which proved far advanced toward incubation; they measure 1.94 X 1.50 
and 1.95 X 1. 51, and are very similar in shape and markings to those de- 
scribed by Dr. Brewer ; though I have failed to detect any of the yellow and 
purple tints mentioned by that writer. The ground-color is of a grayish or 
dirty white tint, heavily and irregularly marked with blotches of reddish- 
brown. On one of these eggs is a patch of dark chocolate brown, 
with blotches upon it of a still darker shade — almost black. This patch 
measures over one inch in length, and, at its broadest point, three-quar- 
ters of an inch in width. On the other egg the blotches and splashes are 
smaller, lighter in color, and chiefly gathered upon one side. Under a 
a glass all these ‘markings’ appear on the surface of the shell ; the deeper 
tints are formed by accumulated layers of light color; an occasional blotch 
of dark brown, however, exhibiting none of this accumulating process 
Much of the ‘dirtiness’ noticed on the ground color is the effect of 
splashes of pigment under the surface. 
The male parent was sitting on the nest at the time I approached it, 
and, when I began to climb the tree, he flew to a bough some seventy 
yards off, where he was shot. His stomach contained the partially digest- 
ed remains of three unfledged Thrushes. — James W. Banks, St. yohn, 
Auk, I, Jau,, 1884. p. , 
N. B. 
May 2, found the nest of a Broa d- winged 
Hajjds: in a large birch tree, twenty feet 
from ground. It contained four eggs ; 
nest something like a Crow’s in size and 
structure. — F. II. G. Q.&O. IX, Jan. 1884. p. 
* 
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