In Winter 



and the hawks — the Sparrow Hawk show- 

 ing himself perhaps most frequently of his 

 family. 



And this last bird, by the w^ay, is some- 

 times as grossly misrepresented as any that 

 flies. Instead of making Sparrows his daily 

 prey and sustenance, as he is reputed to 

 do, he turns his attention to them only on 

 those rare occasions when he is absolutely 

 driven to it in sheer desperation for lack 

 of all other food, and is generally a quite 

 innocent and harmless sort of fellow. In 

 summer he subsists chiefly on grasshoppers 

 and other insects, and field mice, in captur- 

 ing which he often displays powers of 

 vision that are marvelous — sometimes pois- 

 ing as high as three hundred feet in the air 

 over a field of grass or clover, and then 

 dropping like a bullet, with unerring aim, 

 straight down upon the mouse he is after, 

 in the tangled growth below. 



The Httle Downy Woodpecker is alto- 

 gether interesting and attractive. Further- 

 more he can be found almost everywhere 

 and in the very roughest kinds of weather. 



[185] 



