202 Sparrow-Hawk 



The Sparrow-Hawk {Accipiter )iisus). 



In the fourth edition of Yarrell (voL i., p. 89), Newton writes : 

 " The female Sparrow-Hawk is, indeed, the only bird-of-prey which 

 the game-preserver nowadays need fear." The Professor qualified 

 this statement somewhat in his later writings. In his Dictionary of 

 Birds (p. 478) he admitted that Kestrels on a rearing-field might be 

 a source of considerable annoyance to the keeper. And I think 

 that my series of skins shows that this is a very mild statement ; 

 that the real game-eating Kestrel is one of the worst offenders the 

 game-preserver has to contend with during the seven or eight weeks 

 when his fields are crowded with small game-chicks. 



But I have finished with the Kestrel, and put what facts I 

 have collected before you. Under ordinary conditions, he is not 

 only harmless, but a most useful bird ; under certain conditions of 

 intensive hand-rearing he is the keeper's worst enemy. 



M'hat surprises me is the universal condemnation of the Sparrow- 

 Hawk. It is not merely the sportsman, game-preserver and keeper 

 that cry aloud against him. Naturalists, like the late Lord Lilford, 

 or Howard Saunders, or Newton, men who were always ready to 

 take on the defence of any bird, if a defence were at all possible, can 

 find nothing to say in his favour. The Sparrow-Hawk was, I think, 

 the only Hawk that Lord Lilford allowed his keepers to destroy ; 

 to them he extended no mercy. 



My own views in olden times were much the same, but they have 

 been greatly modified by a careful examination of a comparatively 

 large number of skins, collected over a period of twenty years or 

 more. These comprise twenty-one females, sixteen males = thirty- 

 seven ; three broods of nestlings (5, 5, 6) =sixteen ; total, fifty-three. 



It must be remembered that with two exceptions (numbers 

 20 and 21, females) these were all collected between April ist and 

 September ist. They were obtained on the same estates as the 

 series of Kestrels, and for that reason they afford a very proper 

 comparison. 



On all these estates, from mid-May to mid- July, game-chicks were 

 very abundant, and easily procurable, had the Sparrow-Hawks chosen 

 to visit the rearing-fields. But what do we find ? Speaking generally 

 (I will come to the detail later), out of thirty-five birds obtained 

 between April ist and September ist, shot or trapped through the 

 height of the breeding-season, twenty-seven contained remains of 

 passerine birds * ; in seven the crop and stomach were empty, or 

 decomposition had set in, or for some reason or other no note was 

 obtained, and three only had the flesh of game-birds inside them. 

 There was positive evidence of guilt in only three out of thirty-five I 



* This includos a Wryneck, which is a Pirarian bird. 



