THE SPARROW HAWK. 21 



"Though small snakes, mice, lizards, &c., are favorite morsels 

 with this active bird, yet we are not to sujjpose it altogether desti- 

 tute of delicacy in feeding. It will seldom or never eat of any 

 thing that it has not itself killed ; and even that, if not (as epicures 

 would term it) in good eating order, is sometimes rejected. A very 

 respectable friend, through the medium of Mr. Bartram, informs 

 me, that one morning he observed one of these hawks dart down 

 on the ground, and seize a mouse, which he carried to a fence-post, 

 where, after examining it for some time, he left it, and, a little 

 while after, pounced upon another mouse, which he instantly car- 

 ried off to his nest in the hollow of a tree hard by. The gentle- 

 man, anxious to know why the hawk had rejected the first mouse, 

 went up to it, and found it to be almost covered with lice, and 

 greatly emaciated. Here was not only delicacy of taste, but sound 

 and prudent reasoning : " If I carry this to my nest," thought he, 

 " it will fill it with vermin, and hardly be worth eating." 



" The Blue Jays have a particular antipathy to this bird, and 

 frequently insult it by following and imitating its notes so exactly 

 as to deceive even those well acquainted with both. In return for 

 all this abuse, the Hawk contents himself with now and then 

 feasting on the plumpest of his persecutors, who are, therefore, in 

 perpetual dread of him ; and yet, through some strange infatuation, 

 or from fear that, if they lose sight of him, he may attack them 

 unawares, the Sparrow Hawk no sooner appears than the alarm is 

 given, and the whole posse of jays follow." 



Although I have had quite a number of the eggs of this 

 bird, I have been able to meet with but one nest, notwith- 

 standing I have repeatedly searched for it in many localities. 

 This was built in a crow's nest of the previous year, in a 

 hemlock-tree, about thirty feet from the ground. There 

 had been apparently but few alterations of the old nest ; 

 these consisting principally of the addition of a few loose 

 sticks and twigs to the interior of the nest, making it 

 nearly a flat platform. The locality was the valley of the 

 Magalloway River, about twenty-five miles north of Lake 

 Umbagog, Me. The aggs were four in number; and 

 these, with several other specimens collected in Upton, Me., 



