EASTERN SPARROW HAWK 117 



The sparrow hawk resembles other birds very little. From the 

 mourning dove it is easily recognized by its large head and short 

 thick neck. The semidomestic street pigeon and the sparrow hawk — 

 fellow citizens nowadays in winter — may readily be distinguished by 

 the agility of the hawk, its narrower, sharper wings, and, especially 

 in flight, by its trim slenderness. 



Fall. — J. Eugene Law (1915) describes a remarkable migratory 

 flight of western sparrow hawks late in the afternoon of September 

 13, 1914, in New Mexico. He says: "Thousands sailed by in a con- 

 tinuous stream, all working leisurely south, often a hundred or more 

 in sight from the car window at one time. Individuals frequently 

 alighted on convenient trees and telegraph poles, and all seemed on 

 the lookout for food. The flight seemed to be confined to the vicin- 

 ity of the river and its adjacent thickets of rank weeds and willows 

 interspersed with stretches of green meadow and alfalfa." 



John Treadwell Nichols informs me that he has observed not in- 

 frequently an autumnal migration flight of sparrow hawks over the 

 dunes that line the beaches of the southern shore of Long Island, 

 N. Y. On favorable days in September and October they come coast- 

 ing along, flying alone, although two or three may be in sight at one 

 time, following the shore line to the westward at no great height above 

 ground. On many days he has seen five or six birds pass by in the 

 course of a morning; rarety more than a dozen in a single day and once 

 in a while a pigeon hawk following along with them. 



Winter. — As we pass by train through the South Atlantic States 

 during the winter months, the sparrow hawk is one of the common 

 birds we see from the car window. Perched on dead stumps by the 

 side of the cottonfields, flying off from the wires along the track, hov- 

 ering above the bare brown stubble, we see them again and again, 

 nearly always alone. The traveler soon comes to associate the 

 lone sparrow hawk, the lone red-headed woodpecker, and the flocks 

 of mourning doves with the desolation that winter brings to the 

 Carolinas. 



During recent years there have been more and more published 

 records of sparrow hawks spending the winter in some of our large 

 cities. Here they find an abundant food supply, in the flocks of resi- 

 dent house sparrows and starlings, and convenient places to roost, 

 even in the business districts of the city, in the niches of the high 

 office buildings. That they disregard, to a large extent, the proxim- 

 ity of man is well shown by the observations of Nathan Clifford Brown 

 (1906), who, for about four weeks in January and February, watched 

 a bird retire each evening to a recess under the piazza roof of a large 

 hotel in South Carolina. Mr. Brown's observations also show that 

 this bird's motto was — early to bed and late to rise. 



