7Z ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



days, will prevent me from taking a personal shar e 

 in these operations. 



" June 26. Returned home yesterday evening, 

 and the first object that met my eyes on dri\dng 

 up to the hall door was a row of dead sparrow- 

 hawks, seven in number, which D. had impaled, 

 each upon its own peculiar stick, with its wings 

 spread and tail expanded, as if to make the most 

 of it : there were the Patagonian old female, and 

 the little cock, with his blue back and red breast, 

 and five immature birds, some of them larger than 

 the latter. 



" It was not long before Denyer made his 

 appearance v/ith a game-bag in his hand, and 

 gave the following account of his successful expe- 

 dition : — 



" Having, with the assistance of Puttock the 

 gardener and a bird-nesting lad, carefully ex- 

 amined the great wood of Dunhurst, in which 

 direction the old sparrowhawk had flown with the 

 young pheasant, they at last found the nest in 

 a thick oak tree : it was very broad and fiat, 

 constructed on that of a carrion crow, but appa- 

 rently much enlarged, being considerably wider, 

 although not so deep. Hearing the cries of one of 

 the young hawks at a little distance, he concealed 

 himself in the underwood, and waited until the 

 old male arrived nt the nest with a lark in his 



