EASTERN SPARROW HAWK 113 



captured incidentally, but during winter in northern latitudes this 

 hawk's prey is restricted to birds and small mammals. 



The following quotations show the variety of the sparrow hawk's 

 fare: 



Dr. Harold C. Bryant (1918) reports from California that one 

 sparrow hawk's stomach contained "15 black crickets"; another "pts. 

 1 white-footed mouse, pts. 3 Jerusalem crickets, one cricket"; and a 

 third "pts. 5 grasshoppers." Ellison A. Smyth, Jr. (1912) says 

 "they frequent the ivy-covered buildings on the campus [in Virginia], 

 feeding on English Sparrows. The stomach and crop of one indi- 

 vidual shot on the campus were densely packed with crickets. * * * 

 I saw one catch a young Robin and perch with it on a telephone pole 

 near one of the buildings, and calmly eat its capture in contempt of 

 the onslaught of several excited adult Robins." Pierce Brodkorb 

 (1928) reports that a bird, "taken April 24, 1926, at Winnetka, 

 * * * Illinois, was found to have fed upon ants." 



Francis H. Allen (MS.) says: "I once saw one eating a small 

 snake. Two or three inches of the anterior end of the snake's body 

 (the head had already been eaten) stuck up vertically from the bird's 

 talons, and the hawk took pieces of flesh from the top down as one 

 eats a banana." John B. DcMille (1926) relates the following novel 

 experience: "Aug. 31, while walking the railroad near Gascons 

 [Quebec], on the south shore, a bird darted into the bushes at the side 

 of the track just ahead. I was able to get close without being seen 

 and was surprised to discover him standing on the ground beside a 

 mouse hole, in the manner of a cat. The bird stayed a minute or 

 two and then hopped to an opening in the undergrowth. He flew 

 away empty handed." Lewis O. Shelley, writing to Mr. Bent of the 

 behavior of a captive female sparrow hawk, says that "she would 

 touch no food except living frogs which she killed, eating only the 

 contents of the abdominal cavity." Paul Bonnot (1921) tells of a 

 sparrow hawk which "sailed gently down to one of the [cliff] swallow's 

 nests, passing over a group of about fifteen people, supported himself 

 with one foot, hanging nearly upside down in the meantime, inserted 

 the other foot into the nest, and extracted its owner. The captured 

 bird was an adult Cliff Swallow. The nest was not very deep, and 

 the opening was large." 



John Steidl (1928) says that in Illinois he "frequently saw, at the 

 same spot in the road, a small chick in the talons of a Sparrow Hawk," 

 and, accounting for the hawk's departure from its customary diet of 

 insects, he remarks that "for about two weeks preceding the period 

 during which the observations were made there had been a record- 

 breaking period of rainy, cool, and cloudy weather. The insect 

 population was considerably reduced by the weather. In fact, the 



