Nov. ?9o6 I NESTING OF THE RED-BELLIED HAWK M7 wrist, aud took lny petting quite as a matter of course. I left him (presumably him) in the willows by the river calling for his ma, and that she atteuded to his wants was quite evident: for a few weeks later he came up over the hill and made a fruitless dash for a squirrel in my eorral--frighteniug, but uot harming, my ehiekeus--perehed on a fence post for a while aud then flew away. On July 4, 1906, I went up to another uest which contained two youug birds. They were stuffed about as full as they could hold and were so sleepy they could hardly hold their heads up. They would nestle eonfidingly in my hand with a lit- tle plaintive chirp and when put back in the nest the heads would go down and eyes dose at once. There was part of a large lizard (Gerrhonotus) iu the nest and their crops were much distended. These birds xvere covered with a smoky yellowish down with slight reddish tinge on head and could not have beeu more thau a few days from the shell. This was the latest nesting date of my experience aud the eggs must have beeu pro- dueed about the first week in June. This same nest held two fresh eggs on March 6, 1904, giviug this pair of birds the earliest as well as the latest nesting dates of which I have knowledge. The usual uesting date is between the first and the middle of April. One set is the rule wheu undisturbed; but if the first dutch is taken a seeoud will always be laid, the birds never goiug very far from the first nest. The raptorial fouduess for a chosen range is very great iu this species. Takiug the eggs seems to trouble them very little and only the destruction of both birds seems to be able to accomplish their re- moval. Since 1898 I have had good opportunity for observing an isolated pair. These birds have occupied six different nests--all in Eucalyptus trees--either iu groves or as shade trees on sides of the road, the extremes being about a mile apart. Every year but one they have been levied on for one set of eggs. Ou one year ouly was a second set taken from them. After the removal of the first clutch the birds have golle to the nearest uest--geuerally to a uest in the same grove and ouly a few rods away and have occupied it for a second, never going from on? extreme limit of their range to the other. One uest was for three years occupied first by a pair of Pacific horned owls. Iu 1899 I found the ha?vk on the nest which held two fresh eggs, aud two youug owls were in the branches of the next tree. As that was then the only nest in the grove it-looked as if there had been a rather hasty evietiou. In auother nest of this pair in 1898 I found three eggs of the hawk and one of the loug-eared owl. These nests were iu a long branch valley separated from my place by a hill which rises some 200 feet above my house and then drops rather steeply for 500 feet or more to the valley below. In many years resideuee I have very seldom seen a red-bellied ha?vk uear my place, tho ouly about a mile away from their nest- ing range. A few miles away, however, where the lower valley runs up almost to the head of the Eseondido Valley thru a long Ullwooded raviue the birds are very frequently seeu, xvhieh would seem to show their tendelmy to huut the canyons and low foot hills rather than the higher hills and lnore opeu country. The eggs of the red-bellied hawk show the same variations in color and mar. k- ings that one finds in other Raptores, rulming thru the usual gamut of spots, splashes and blotches of various shades of reddish brown to very heavily marked specimeus. Occasionally oue will find an egg wholly. unmarked. As a rule they are very handsome, and in series compare very favorably with the eggs of auy of the Raptores, few indeed equalling them in beauty. The usual uest complement is 3, tho 2 is quite as common. Sets of 4 are rare.
