Sparrovv-Hawk 205 



The Sparrow-Hawk sliows ikj such variety ; tlie dietary is 

 conhned almost entirely to birds, passerine birds, varying in size 

 from a Thrush or Blackbird to a Pipit : in addition, there are four 

 cases where game-birds were taken. Even the requirements of a 

 large family do not seem to have caused the Sparrow-Hawk to yield 

 to the temptation of the rearing-field. Of course, most of the birds 

 obtained between May and July would be breeding-birds ; at any 

 rate, only one brood of nestlings proved to have remains of game- 

 birds inside them. 



So far as m\- experience goes, Sparrow-Hawks never take any 

 prey except birds, and those for choice perfectly strong and healthy. 

 Sickly or wounded birds are seldom attacked, and I don't believe a 

 Sparrow-Hawk ever touches an\-thing dead, except it be his own 

 kill. 



Several responsible authors, however, give a far greater variety 

 to the Sparrow-Hawk's bill-of-fare. Macgillivray (" British Birds," 

 1840, iii., p. 354) writes : "In the fields, it preys on leverets, young 

 rabbits, field-mice ... 



Seebohm (" British Birds," 1883, p. 138) says : " But birds 

 do not form the Sparrow-Hawk's only fare. Sometimes you see 

 him dip silently and swiftly down among the marshy vegetation in 

 old watercourses and bear off a rat or a frog ; and field-mice, leverets, 

 and young rabbits are often victims of his rapacity." (I imagine 

 that the terminal sentence has been borrowed, without acknow- 

 ledgment, from Macgillivray.) 



There are fifty-three skins, male, female and young, to which 

 I have referred (I have other skins, shot in the winter months). 

 Not one single specimen contained any food but birds, and I confess 

 to being somewhat sceptical about the rabbits, leverets, mice and 

 frogs. 



There are one or two curious points which this series of skins 

 brings out. The Sparrow-Hawk is somewhat slow in acquiring the 

 fully-adult plumage; at least three years, perhaps more; but thev must 

 arrive at their sexual maturity much sooner, and man\- birds, if not 

 the majority, certainly breed in their first year (hatched in May, 

 breed the following May) in \'ery immature plumage. When a 

 nesting pair are destroyed with their eggs or chicks, it is exceptional 

 to find both parents fully adult. If the cock is adult, the hen is 

 generally immature. More rarely we find an adult hen and an 

 immature cock, while sometimes neither has acquired the plumage 

 of maturity. 



I believe that breeding before the full plumage is acquired is 

 ncjt uncommon with several members of this family — Peregrines 

 and Golden Eagles, for instance — but no other raptor breeds in such 

 juvenile plumage as the Sparrow-Hawk. In the case of most birds 

 that take a long time to acquire their fully adult dress — for 

 example, the Gannet or the Great Black-backed Gull — the 

 sexual organs only mature with the plumage ; and they do not 



