keeps more to the woods than the redtail, and is much less destructive; his cries are shorter, shriller, and less savage, and his general disposition is milder. In the spring they are especially 
Red-shouldered Hawk. noisy, and then several pairs may sometimes be seen circling together high in air, all whistling and screaming at the same time.
Occasionally a pair will remain all winter, and during this season they will keep to the thickest parts of the woods and loaf about open springs, feeding on such half-dormant frogs as rise to the surface of the water. They never appear to suffer from want of food, however, as all those I have killed in winter had a thick layer of fat under the skin.
Although the rough-legged hawk is usually spoken of as rare in this part of the country, they seem to be common enough here in southeastern New Hampshire, at certain seasons at least; and during the Indian-summer weather that comes just before winter sets in, I can at almost any time find one or more without the least trouble. Perhaps it is because they are here at a season when other birds—and hawks in particular—are most conspicuous by their absence that this species is so well known; still, there seems to be something different in their method of flight and ways in general. One peculiarity the rough-legged hawk shares with the little sparrow hawk—that of hanging like a wind-hover in midair, head to the wind, with dangling legs, his keen eyes watching the grass beneath for any sign of a mouse. With a continual rolling flap of the wings he holds himself, hour after hour, over precisely the same spot. At the first glimpse of a mouse he goes down with a perpendicular rush like a falcon, and flounders and flaps around until he has the little victim in his claws.
Judging from my own experience I should consider this the most intelligent of hawks. With the utmost caution I find it almost impossible to approach within two hundred yards when I
