Our Birds of Prey. 121 
pieces while still alive ; on lizards and small snakes; on 
crabs, shrimps, worms, etc., which it gets on the mud- 
flats ; on all sorts ot insects, such as cicadas particularly, 
grasshoppers, locusts, the large bodied moths, etc. ; and 
on fruits and seeds — and perhaps it is due to this very 
wide range of feeding that this hawk is now the com- 
monest throughout the whole colony. 
Practically nothing is known locally about the nidifi- 
cation of these birds. Owing to the enormous extent of 
wooded and uncleared lands — the cultivated districts 
being but a mere narrow fringe along the coast and up 
certain parts of the rivers — it is out of the question to 
seek for the nests of the generality of the species, and of 
those few that at times make their nests on the coast, it 
is seldom that one is able to get at the eggs, owing to 
the inaccessible places, such as the tops of tall dead 
palms and other trees selected by the birds, in the midst 
of dense spiny bushes or in the swamps. The result is 
that in the collections of eggs made in the colony by 
persons living on the estates and in the country districts 
generally, it is seldom that one finds the eggs of the 
the hawks included, and then only of about two or three 
species. Notes on the nidification of three or four species 
of these birds have been given by Mr. LLOYD Pryce 
(See " Nests and eggs of some common Guiana Birds," 
Timehri, Vol. v., New series, 1891, p. 67), but owing to 
the doubtfulness of the identification of the species, a 
good deal of their value is lost. 
In describing the various species, there might be 
some convenience in treating first of the more com- 
monly occurring forms, or in grouping them accord- 
ing to their size and colour; but this would have 
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