160 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
and Taverner, a hundred and thirty-three started across the lake in 
half an hour. Still greater migration flights have been recorded from 
Cape May, New Jersey, where the birds gather before crossing Dela¬ 
ware Bay. In 1920, Dr. Witmer Stone reports, in one week no less 
than fourteen hundred were killed by gunners for food (1922, p. 567). 
This seems like carrying their destruction too far, for after all, as 
Mr. McAtee points out, both the Cooper and the Sharp-shin “have a 
tendency to keep the fruit and grain-eating birds from becoming too 
numerous.” 
Additional Literature.—Foiibush, E. H., Educational Leaflet 37, Nat. Assoc. 
Audubon Soc.— Rust, H. J., Condor, XVI, 14-24, 1914. 
COOPER HAWK: Accipiter cooperi (Bonaparte) 
Plates 9 and 10 
Description. — Male: Length 14-17 inches, wing 8.S-9.4, tail 7.8-8.3, tarsus 
2.3-2.6. Female: Length 18-20 inches, wing 10.1-11, tail 9-10.5, tarsus 2.6- 
2.8. Five quills cut out on inner webs. Adultx: Like the Sharp-shin but larger, 
tail rounded, and top of head blackish in contrast to bluish gray of back. 
Range. —Breeds mainly in Canadian Zone from southern Alaska, southern 
British Columbia, central Alberta, northern Manitoba, southern Ontario, southern 
Quebec, and Prince Edward Island south to southern border of United States from 
Florida to California, and into Mexico; winters from northern Oregon, Colorado, 
Nebraska, southern Ontario, and southern Maine south to Costa Rica. 
State Records. —Although few Cooper Hawk eggs have yet been recorded from 
New Mexico, the birds are common in the wooded mountain areas, nesting in the 
watered carbons, as those about Chloride and Ilermosa that run east, and also on 
the tributaries of the Gila River, generally laying the first week in May (Ligon 
1916-1918). Eggs were taken May 4, 1885, at Kingston (Norris); May 26, 1913, 
on Beaver Creek, and other nests found at 6,400-6,500 feet near Chloride; [a nest 
with one egg, May 13, 1916, on Mineral Creek three miles w^est of Chloride; one 
with eggs, May 21, 1920, and one with downy young, June 29, 1920, also near 
Chloride at about 6,500 feet; one with four half-feathered young June 28, 1916, in 
a nest about 35 miles northeast of Grant. Another nest was found at 7,500 feet 
in the bed of a dry canyon north of Mount Taylor (Ligon).J It seems probable 
that birds [taken May 6, 1920, near Walnut Wells (Ligon), seen May 26, 1918, at 
Lake Burford (Wetmore)J, noted June 1, 1884, at Silver City (Marsh), and July 
4, 1903, near Pecos (Bailey), and those collected in the San Luis Mountains in 1892— 
where one was taken July 13 and another June 24 both on the west side (Mearns)— 
were all nesting in their respective neighborhoods. [At Silver City they are common 
and a breeding female was taken June 17, 1925 (Kellogg). In northern Santa Fe 
County they are common in early spring and a few remain during the nesting season 
(Jensen, 1922).] They are said to breed in San Miguel County (Mitchell), and the 
breeding range probably extends from 6,000 to 9,000 feet altitude. 
In the fall one was seen near Koehler Junction, on September 11, 1913 (Kalm- 
bach); one was seen in the Guadalupe Mountains on August 8, 1901, at 6,200 feet 
(Bailey); and a pair near the summit of the Capitan Mountains August 16, 1903 
(Gaut); [it was taken at Silver City, September 1, 1916 (Kellogg)]; while a little later, 
September 6, 1906, one was noted at 11,000 feet in the Jemez Mountains on Pelado 
Peak (Bailey). The above localities probably represent about the extremes of the 
