184 Bird -Lore February 13. The Great Horned Owls began hooting nearly an hour before sunset this evening. It is remarkable how loud their cry sounds at a distance of half a mile or even a mile. I am convinced that they can be heard distinctly two miles away, for I have often heard them in the day time from a direction in which the nearest woods were at least as far as that. There are always several pairs dwelling in a certain dark hemlock swamp about a mile and a half away, and sometimes in the evening, or b}' moon- light, they come hunting across the meadows and pastures, hooting at intervals as ihey come. When they get within one hundred yards or so their cry is loud enough to arouse everyone in the house. February 18. Followed the track of a Hawk, apparently a Goshawk, twenty or thirty rods through the birch woods west of the cove. From the appearance of the tracks the bird must have walked much after the manner of a Crow, though dragging its claws more. Occasionally it hopped for a few feet. There was no sign of its having killed any game near there and having eaten so much as to be unable to fly at once, as is sometimes the case. At times it followed in the tracks of rabbits for some distance. I have often known them to do this, and am inclined to think that they occasionally hunt rabbits in this manner where the under-brush is too dense to allow them to fly through it easily. I have some- times followed their tracks through the brush until I came upon the remains of freshly killed rabbits which they had been eating. On coming out into an opening, I saw a beautiful male Goshawk in full blue plumage perched on the the top of a dead maple in a swamp. When I tried to approach, he took wing and flew off toward the north. ■ r
