Feb. 1888.] 
AND OOLOGrIST. 
19 
their bill to the roost, and different kinds of nuts 
and acorns, pieces of meat and even bones may 
be'found on the sandbank. 
is long as the weather remains mild the Grow 
sleeps in these places, but when the sharp 
North winds strip the trees of their leaves, 
the trees lose much of their attraction for the 
crows\ and they begin to spend the nights on 
the sahd which girdles the island. 
In November, comparatively few Crows re- 
sort to tiie sand, but when in December a spell 
of zero sweeps over the island, most of them 
remain on the ground, covering thd vast sand- 
bar at the foot of the island with innumerable 
black dots,' and as many more again stay on the 
large ice Held which stretches now along the 
shallow eastern shore like a continuation of the 
sandbar. 
Here they are on the bare’ ice from 4 p. m. 
till 7 a. m., fifteen long hours, with tempera- 
ture near zero, exposed to the fierce wind with- 
out any shelter, at all. How/ they can stand it, 
is more than I know, and although I have found 
frozen crows and crows with stumped toes as 
reminiscences of former experiences, I still be- 
lieve, as a rule, they stand the rigors of our 
winter quite well. The first sunny mild day, 
and immediately after the coldest spells, the 
crow thinks of courting, and shows all signs of 
an amorous crow who'se love is not by our tem- 
peratures refrigerate 
This courting is ftone openly, in broad day- 
light, socially, gracefully. The crows gather 
on a sunny hillside or 
place, talk to ea/h oth 
’tb^them into the sylvan retreats where they 
raise aMfig family. Let us hope that all will re- 
turn to us in .the fall, bringing with them- 
selves a great arniy- of jolly young crows. In- 
teresting would it be t&Tearn if other cities on 
the lower Missouri and Mississippi have similar 
roosts,, Omaha, Kansas City, v '6ijiro, Louis- 
ville, Memphis, are probably like favbvgd. 
some similarly favorable 
. . ,er in the softest crow 
language, one bjf one, flies straight up into the 
Nesting 
Habits 
winged 
of the 
Hawk. 
Broad- 
BV J. W. PRESTON. 
air, soars fora foment, floats gracefully down, 
cheered by the/rest, amidst which it alights to 
see others do what he did. 
As soon as ,the weather becomes mild and the 
ground free from snow and ice, the crows be- 
gin to disperse. This is generally not before 
February, ,ind sometimes quite late in that 
month, buf by the middle of March their ranks 
are thinned out very much, and few are left 
after the first of April. Generally, their depar- 
ture is not particularly noticed, it being a con- 
tinuation of their daily flight, failing to return 
to the /-oost in the evening. 
But/ sometimes I have seen two birds flying 
together in a northerly direction, even in the 
afternoon, and right against the incoming 
stream of crows. These I take for absconders, 
reaily to dispense w>th sociability, the two be- 
\njr enough company by themselves. With the 
beginning of the breeding season, the hfetory of 
tne common roost ends. We do not nbw fol- 
In hidden retreats, where the tangled wilder- 
ness of lakes and forests guards in lonely si- 
lence the streams which feed the Red River of 
the North in Minnesota, I found the Broad- 
winged Hawk (Buteo pennsylvanicus), breeding 
abundantly. 
At home with the Barred Owl, and unmolest- 
ed by stealthy tread of wild cat or lynx, he is 
in this region indeed a “ bird of the wilder- 
ness.” 
He chooses the heavy, close woods about 
small lakes, where food is abundant and shelter 
near, and where he may hide himself. Here he 
may be seen hurrying to and fro over the 
water, or darting up along the shore, to glide as 
quickly out of sight in the -woods. My oppor- 
tunities for studying the habits of this interest- 
ing bird have been excellent during the past 
two seasons, while 1 was camping out in those 
unfrequented wilds ; and from their inquisitive 
ways and lack of fear at human presence, I 
have come to admire them almost as much as 
any of their kind. 
The Broad-wing, though capable of daring 
dashes of flight, is usually content to seek his 
food quietly under cover of the woods. Some- 
what sluggish, he will permit a very close ap- 
proach, and frequently I have passed directly 
beneath the branch on which one sat eyeing me 
curiously, much as the Barred Owl will do. 
One morning, while passing along a timber 
road, my attention was attracted by the cries of 
a pair of Red-eyed Vireos, and upon investi- 
gation, the cause of the difficulty proved to be 
a male Broad Wing, which had strayed too near 
their quarters, and now sat confused at their 
scolding. My approach was not noticed until 
I had come within ten paces of him. 
Melanism in this species is rare. The one 
example taken by the writer on the shores of 
Crystal Lake, Northern Iowa, on May 3, 1886, is 
the only occurrence so far as known, save the two 
