72 
ORNITHOLOGIST 
[Vol. 8-No. 9 
Pigeon Hawk. Sparrow Hawk. 
I spent the Spring of 1882 at Brandy- 
wine Springs, New Castle Co., Del., and a 
great deal of my time was spent in collect- 
ing. In one corner of the grounds, about 
two hundred yards from the house, was an 
old, deserted building, called the “ Old 
Lodge,” and during the months of Febru- 
ary and March I had observed a pair- of 
Pigeon Hawks spending a great deal of 
time in its vicinity. Thinking they must 
have a nest somewhere near, I made dili- 
gent search for it, but my endeavors were 
fruitless until March 2. When I was en- 
tering the lodge that morning, I was sur- 
prised and perhaps startled by the female 
Hawk flying out from under the roof of 
the porch, almost in my face. This g-ave 
me a fresh start, and after a short search I 
found the nest, containing four fresh eggs, 
in a crevice on the lower part of the porch 
roof. The nest was placed in the hollow 
between two beams of the roof ; was cov- 
ered by the roof and had for a foundation 
a beam running the length of the roof. 
The interior measured 12x5 inches and 
was 6 inches high. The entrance measured 
12x4 inches. Tire bottom of the nest was 
a few small twigs, covered by a layer an 
inch thick of the inner bark of the swamp 
maple, and very slightly hollowed. The 
eggs somewhat resembled those of the 
Sparrow Hawk, but were one-eighth of an 
inch longer and one-sixteenth wider, per- 
fectly elliptical, and marked unevenly with 
five dots of light reddish brown, tending 
to congregate in spots. One — the fresh- 
est — had a large blotch of the same color 
on one side, covering nearly one-fourth of 
the whole surface. Further examination 
showed that they had built there for at 
least three years before, as that number of 
similar nests were found in other crevices 
near the first. It seemed strange that so 
shy a Hawk should choose such a nesting 
place, but as the grounds had not been 
used for at least five years, until the pre- 
vious Fall, that may account for it ; though 
the “ Old Lodge ” stood not more than 
twenty-five feet from a much traveled road. 
The same Spring (1882) I found two 
Sparrow Hawk’s nests about two miles 
north of the Springs. They were both 
built in the same tree — a large hollow 
sycamore — and the two families seemed to 
live very peacefully. One was in a hole in 
a branch about fifty feet from the ground 
and contained three eggs laid on the bare 
wood, as were all the eggs of this species 
that I ever found. The second nest was 
rather curious. When climbing after the 
first, I noticed a second pair of birds go- 
ing in and out of a large hole near the 
root of the tree, and after securing the first 
set, reversed my climbers and with a good 
deal of hard laborascended to the firstlarge 
branch, about twenty-five feet up, where the 
female flew out and dropped down past 
me. I found another set of eggs in the 
hollow of this branch, about three feet 
back from the trunk. There were several 
small knot-holes in the branch near the 
nest, but none of them would admit any- 
thing larger than a Sparrow, so that the 
Hawks were compelled to ascend inside 
the tree to reach their nest. How they 
found and why they chose such a situation 
I leave for others to conjecture — Charles 
D. Gibson, fienovo, l^a.O. & O. VT11. Sept. 1883. p, U 
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