THE HAWKS 187 



The Sparrow-Hawk. 



As you sail near a dripping plantation in autumn or early 

 spring with a full breeze in your sail, you may see the air 

 full of flocks of birds driven across the sky by the wind 

 from the fields near-by. Still you glide on, when suddenly 

 you see a commotion in a flock of sparrows or thrushes, as 

 they go flying from the wood across the river, and you look 

 up near the tree tops, behind which the yellow sun hangs like 

 a ball of fire, and you recognise the sparrow-hawk hunting 

 for his dinner : perhaps a young bird who has never left the 

 fields near his native planting, where he was reared in a nest 

 of sticks from the great blotched white eggs nursed by his 

 mother. At another time you may creep along a hedgerow 

 in winter, and hiding in the close ditch, watch the sparrow- 

 hawk hunting along the other side of the hedge. He knows 

 where you are hiding, and is, like you, watching those 

 hungry flocks of larks, thrushes, sparrows, greenfinches, 

 and chaffinches feeding on the stubble ; but he will fly 

 leisurely just above the ground till he is safe out of your 

 way, when suddenly you will see him wheel — for he is a 

 swift flyer, resembling a pigeon on the wing — and dart 

 through the hedge, seizing an unsuspecting chaffinch, sitting 

 quietly down to eat him where he catches him, the rest of 

 the birds rising in a noisy flock and scattering like chaff 

 before the wind, seeking the nearest hedge, for once in 

 there they know the sparrow-hawk cannot follow. 



In very cold weather, when the dikes are laid, and in 

 the marsh-farm the cattle are in the yard, he hunts about 

 the straw-stacks for his breakfast of sparrow or greenfinch, 

 or, failing that, he goes down to the marshes and hunts for 

 larks, his standing dish. 



All the year round he is not averse from young mavises, 

 blackbirds, and partridges, when he can feed upon them on 

 the arable marshes or grassy lokes. And if you see him 



