ORNITHOLOGIST 
— AJS J)- 
OOLOGIST. 
Sl.OO per 
Annum. 
Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 
Established, March. 1875 
Single Copy, 
10 Cents. 
VGL. VI. 
NORWICH, CONN., DECEMBER, i88i. 
NO. lo. 
Cooper’s Hawk. 
Before transcribing my notes on the 
breeding habits of the vivacious little Sharp- 
shinned Hawk, we must pay our compli¬ 
ments to its larger congener. Indeed 
through the season it forces itself upon our 
notice in so many ways, and with such per¬ 
sistence, that we are obliged to respect its 
prior claims. When-we go into the leafless 
woods, during the first week in April, for 
our earliest set of Buteos, the Cooper’s 
Hawks are already paired and apparently 
ready to begin housekeeping. They feign 
alarm at our approach to the old haunts, and 
following us, scold us well as we go from 
nest to nest. But as usual with the sex 
when house-hunting, the females are capri¬ 
cious and not easily suited. The old home, 
though in good repair, is perhaps in a 
neighborhood where callers are too free, 
and ample time must be taken to choose a 
new tenement. 
Then again, about the twenty-fifth of 
.\pril, when we once more climb to our 
Buteos, hoping for a second clutch, we are 
surprised to find the first egg of a Cooper 
which has taken possession of this ready- 
furnished abode. The second week in May 
they are breeding commonly, and by the 
first of June they are so abundant here as 
to outnumber all the other Raptores. They 
will breed in old nests in the same low sit¬ 
uations in hemlocks and young pines as the 
Sharp-shinned Hawk, but they frequent as 
well the tall deciduous woods, and I have 
taken eggs from dizzy heights on outlying 
prongs, away above the loftiest forks of the 
Buteos. Very rarely A. Cooperi selects a 
new and unused site, but as a rule old nests 
are used, and often on a pile of rubbish in 
a crotch they will rear a very large super¬ 
structure. If the forks of the tree go up a 
little way without divergence, the pair will 
work for weeks and raise the nest three or 
four feet until it is bulkier than the home of 
any of our local rapaciae except the Fish- 
hawk. I know to-day where there are three 
such old Cooper’s nests which are piled so 
high with brush that standing on a level 
with the bottom of the nests it is difficult 
for R climber to reach inside. The males 
assist at intervals in bringing sticks, and 
unite vvith their mates in scolding any wit¬ 
ness of their house-raising. 
The fecundity of this Hawk, under the 
peculiar persuasion of the oologisf, is not so 
great as its small congener’s, yet it will lay 
three clutches each year in as many nests 
if the first and second sets are taken. Five 
eggs is the usual clutch, though I have seen 
four eggs incubated many times, and have 
taken an extreme clutch of six. The first 
egg laid is usually pale blue, the rest of the 
nest complement is lighter, and the eggs as 
a whole fade as incubation progresses. 
Two weeks are occupied in laying, and at 
the end of one week’s incubation the eggs 
can be easily blown. Sets witli markings 
are not rare; but the pigment is used spar¬ 
ingly, so as a rule a fair series of these eggs 
jjresent few changes and are unattractive. 
I can believe that for one accpiainted with 
our New London County woods, and all 
the old Crows’ and Hawks’ nests here, it 
would not be a hard task to secure a half 
busliel of these accipitrine eggs every sea¬ 
son. ( For the benefit of those incredu¬ 
lous collectors who do not live where Hawks 
breed freely, and who cannot realize esti- 
