BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
121 
quite superficial, but that of the other was well-formed. The eggs—each 
nest contained five—are deposited about the first of May. They are 
nearly spherical, white or bluish-white, marked with large and irreg¬ 
ular splashes or blotches of brown, and measure about 1.46 by 1.16 
inches. Gentry, a close observer and facile writer, remarks in his “Life- 
Histories of Birds,” that the “ eggs, in some instances, are laid on con¬ 
secutive days, but we have positive proofs that sometimes a single day 
is intermitted, and at other times, even two and three days intervene be¬ 
tween each deposit.” In one of my nests I found two days to intervene 
after the deposition of each of three eggs, and the fifth ovum was de¬ 
posited after an intervention of three days. Gentry has found them 
breeding in the deserted nest of the common grey squirrel. Mr. J. 
Hoopes Matlack, of West Chester, informs me he found a pair breeding 
in an old crow’s nest; such sites, however, Gentry advises us, are rarely 
chosen. It is said this species will sometimes nidificate on a ledge or 
rock or hollow and decaying tree limbs. One nest, which I had the op¬ 
portunity of observing from its early commencement, was built by the 
united labor of both birds, which occupied a period of seven days. 
Gentry, who, doubtless, has had a more extensive experience, gives three 
or four days, according to the style, as the time requisite for the con¬ 
struction of the nest. Various writers assert that dry grass, leaves, moss, 
etc., aid in the make-up of the nests; such, no doubt, is the case, but as 
previously stated, I have found sticks and twigs to solely constitute the 
nests. Incubation is alternately engaged in by both birds, which, while 
they show great solicitude for their offspring, repelling all bird intruders 
with the most determined zeal and pugnacity, will, when molested by 
man, show marked timidity, and leave to his desecration their nest and 
its contents. The young are carefully watched and fed by the parents, 
chiefly on a diet of small birds—sparrows principally—until, Gentry 
says, they are about six weeks old, when they are able to provide food 
for themselves. 
According to Nuttall, “ this species feeds principally upon mice, liz¬ 
ards, small birds, and sometimes even squirrels. In thinly-settled dis¬ 
tricts, this hawk seems to abound, and proves extremely destructive to 
young chickens, a single bird having been known regularly to come 
every day until he had carried away between twenty and thirty.” The 
same writer relates a circumstance, where he was one day conversing 
with a planter, when one of these hawks came down and without any 
ceremony or heeding the loud cries of the housewife, who most reluc¬ 
tantly witnessed the robbery, snatched away a chicken directly before 
them. 
Dr. Coues says: “ It preys chiefly upon small birds and quadrupeds, 
capturing in the dashing manner of all the species of this group, and, 
like its small allies, feeds to some extent upon insects.” Since the ad¬ 
vent and alarming increase of the English Sparrow, it is not unusual for 
