THE AUK: 
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 
ORNITHOLOGY. 
vol. ix. October, 1892. No. 4. 
BREEDING HABITS OF THE FISH HAWK ON 
PLUM ISLAND, NEW YORK. 
BY CHARLES SLOVER ALLEN. 
( With Plates IV and V.) 
Even the wildest and most independent of our feathered friends 
rarely fail to show a proper appreciation of our demonstrations 
of kindness and good-will toward them. Wherever thorough 
protection is afforded to both them and their young during the 
breeding season their confidence in our good intentions is simply 
wonderful, and we are trusted as soon as we have conclusively 
shown ourselves to be worthy of their confidence. They quickly 
learn when and where safety is to be found and whom to trust or 
fear. The German Stork is exceedingly wild and cautious in the 
fields, woods, and along the river marshes, yet confidently builds 
its nest upon the housetops and churches in the villages and towns , 
and often struts about the dooryards. In Germany it has taken 
centuries to bring about this result ; but I know of an island, less 
than one hundred miles from New Yorl* where Fish Hawks, prior 
to 1SS5, had been protected for over thirty years, and where they 
were almost as tame as the German Storks. In this year Plum 
Island (the island in question) was sold to a syndicate who 
planned the construction of large hotels and cottages ; since then 
all has completely changed. For about forty years Plum Island 
had belonged to the Jerome family, and the Fish Hawks had been 
protected and in every way encouraged to occupy the island as a 
nesting place. 
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