. Wild wings; adventures of a camera-hunter among the larger wild birds of North America on sea and land . g track, antl as she grew more excited, I knewI was making progress. At length I came upon a nest simi-lar to the first, containing five young, in various stages ofgrowth, one apparently just hatched, and the oldest severaltimes as large; the eggs must have been laid by the endof April. This time Mrs. Hawk fairly outdid herself. I hadbrought a youth with me to help jDatrol the swamj^, andhe really thought the bird would scratch his eyes out. Shedived frantically at our heads, scratching a
. Wild wings; adventures of a camera-hunter among the larger wild birds of North America on sea and land . g track, antl as she grew more excited, I knewI was making progress. At length I came upon a nest simi-lar to the first, containing five young, in various stages ofgrowth, one apparently just hatched, and the oldest severaltimes as large; the eggs must have been laid by the endof April. This time Mrs. Hawk fairly outdid herself. I hadbrought a youth with me to help jDatrol the swamj^, andhe really thought the bird would scratch his eyes out. Shedived frantically at our heads, scratching at us with herclaws. Once or twice she actually struck me. Indeed, I knowof a man who was driven out of a berry-pasture by one ofthese hawks, which doubtless had young in the bushes. Nextyear my harriers nested again near where I first found them,and there were five fresh eggs on the thirtieth of April. THE NEW SPORT OF HAWKING 273 By May tenth it is the height of the nesting-season for theCoopers Hawk. This species is preeminently the mostdestructive of the raptorial tribe in the United States, though. NEST AND EGGS OF COOPERS HAWK IN CROTCH OF CHESTNUT if the Goshawk were more common it would deserve thepalm. It pounces upon every living thing it meets that isnot too large for it. Ordinarily wary enough, its dash andboldness in pursuit of prey are amazing. Not long ago agentleman called to me as I passed along the village street,asking me to come to his hen-house and see a hawk that wasafter his chickens. It was a Coopers Hawk, as I had antici- 274 WILD WINGS pated, and there was the rascal, well up in the air, circlingabout with alternate soarings and a series of quick the fact that two men were working right there, andhad a gun close at hand, no sooner would they get to workwith saw and hammer than down the hawk would dash andsnatch a chicken within a yard or two of them. Twice orthrice it had tried, but the men had rushed at it and made itdrop the chicken.
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjobh, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirds
