88 BIRDS OF PREY. 



would be found more sanguinary and pugnacious than 

 the present. The young bird is described by Pennant 

 under the name of the dubious Falcon, and he remarks 

 its affinity to the European Sparrow-Hawk. It is, how- 

 ever, somewhat less, differently marked on the head, and 

 much more broadly and faintly barred below. The nest 

 of our species is yet unknown. It probably, like its 

 European prototype, builds in hollow trees, or conceals 

 its eyry among rocks. The true Sparrow-Hawk shows 

 considerable docility, is easily trained to hunt Partridges 

 and duails ; and makes great destruction among Pigeons, 

 young poultry, and small birds of all kinds. In the 

 winter they migrate from Europe into Barbary and 

 Greece, and are seen in great numbers out at sea, mak- 

 ing such havock among the birds of passage they hap- 

 pen to meet in their way, that the sailors in the Mediter- 

 ranean call them Corsairs. Wilson observed the female 

 of our species descend upon its prey with great velocity 

 in a sort of zig-zag pounce, after the manner of the Gos- 

 hawk. Descending furiously and blindly upon its quarry, 

 a young Hawk of this species broke through the glass of 

 the green-house, at the Cambridge Botanic Garden ; and 

 fearlessly passing through a second glass partition, he 

 was only brought up by the third, and caught, though 

 little stunned by the effort. His wing-feathers were much 

 torn by the glass, and his flight in this way so impeded 

 as to allow of his being approached. This species feeds 

 principally upon mice, lizards, small birds, and some- 

 times even squirrels. In the thinly settled states of 

 Georgia and Alabama, this Hawk seems to abound, and 

 proves extremely destructive to young chickens, a single 

 bird having been known regularly to come every day un- 

 til he had carried away between 20 and 30. At noon-day, 

 while I was conversing with a planter, one of these Hawks 



