172 
FALCONS, HAWKS, EAGLES, ETC. 
Nest. — A bulky mass of twigs, flags, weeds, coarse grass, leaves, cot¬ 
ton, or Spanish moss; placed according to the locality in low bushes or in 
high trees. Eggs: 2 or 3, ground color brown or white, generally entirely 
hidden by spots of darker brown. 
Food. — Carrion, mice, rabbits, fish, and snakes. 
The caracara or Mexican buzzard is the oddest looking bird found 
in that most interesting belt of strange Mexican types, the southern 
border line of the United States. In flight it has a wooden look, 
given probably by its curious color pattern and long neck. Head 
and neck appear like one stiff round-headed stick. Its wings look 
stiff and angular too, and as it flaps along their white tips add to 
the singular effect. On your first view of the bird you exclaim in¬ 
voluntarily, “What a queer looking creature ! ” 
In driving from Corpus Christi to Brownsville, while we found the 
Swainson, Harris, and white-tailed hawks common on the open 
prairie, we saw caracaras only on the mesquite or shin oak prairie. 
In the mesquite one day we came to two of the birds standing in the 
road beside a dead snake. As they stood with heads raised, they 
had a proud, hawk-like bearing. 
South of San Ignatius, in driving through the low shin oak, we 
found two caracaras perched on an isolated little round-topped oak. 
They were so big and the tree was so small that they more than 
filled it, looking like huge stuffed birds on meagre standards. They 
were so evidently at home, sitting pluming themselves calmly 
while we stared, that we looked about for a nest and soon discov¬ 
ered it, a mass of sticks, holding a fuzzy-headed nestling, on the top 
of another small round oak. 
On the coast of southern Texas, Colonel Goss found the caracara 
playing the part the eagles do with fish hawks. When the brown 
pelicans were coming to shore with their pouches full of fish, the 
caracaras would dart down screaming and strike at them with their 
talons till the pelicans disgorged their fish, when the robbers would 
calmly take possession of the quarry. 
GENUS PANDION. 
364. Pandion haliaetus carolinensis (GW.). Fish Hawk. 
Plumage close, firm, imbricated, oily; feet large and strong, roughly 
granular ; toes all free to the base, outer toe reversible; claws all the 
same length; wings long, pointed; tail short. Adult male: Head, neck 
and under parts white, head more or less streaked with blackish, broad 
dark streak on side of head; breast sometimes slightly.blotched with 
brown; tail narrowly tipped with white and crossed by 6 or 7 narrow 
blackish bands. Adult female: similar, but chest heavily spotted with 
brown. Young: sexes similar to adults, but upper parts blackish brown, 
feathers tipped with white or huffy. Length: 20.75-25.00, extent about 
65, wing 17-21, tail 7-10, bill 1.20-1.45. 
