30 AMERICAN SPARROW HAWK. 



pretty high up, where the top or a large limb has been broken off. I 

 have never seen its eggs ; but have been told that the female generally 

 lays four or five, which are of a light brownish yellow color, spotted 

 with a darker tint ; the young are fed on grasshoppers, mice, and small 

 birds, the usual food of the parents. 



The habits and manners of this bird are well known. It flies rather 

 irregularly, occasionally suspending itself in the air, hovering over a 

 particular spot for a minute or two, and then shooting off in another 

 direction. It perches on the top of a dead tree, or pole in the middle 

 of a field or meadow, and as it alights shuts its long wings so suddenly 

 that they seem instantly to disappear ; it sits here in an almost perpen- 

 dicular position, sometimes for an hour at a time, frequently jerking its 

 tail, and reconnoitering the ground below, in every direction, for mice, 

 lizards, &c. It approaches the farm-house, particularly in the morning, 

 skulking about the barn-yard for mice or young chickens. It frequently 

 plunges into a thicket after small birds, as if by random ; but always 

 with a particular, and generally a fatal, aim. One day I observed a 

 bird of this species perched on the highest top of a large poplar, on the 

 skirts of the wood; and was in the act of raising the gun to my eye 

 when he swept down with the rapidity of an arrow into a thicket of 

 briars about thirty yards off; where I shot him dead; and on coming up 

 found the small field sparrow (fig. 2,) quivering in his grasp. Both our 

 aims had been taken in the same instant, and, unfortunately for him, 

 both were fatal. It is particularly fond of watching along hedge rows, 

 and in orchards, where those small birds, represented in the same plate, 

 usually resort. When gi'asshoppers are plenty they form a considerable 

 part of its food. 



Though small snakes, mice, lizards, &c., be favorite morsels with this 

 active bird ; yet we are not to suppose it altogether destitute of delicacy 

 in feeding. It will seldom or never eat of anything 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 carried off to his nest, in the hollow of a tree hard by. The 

 gentleman, 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 niy nest," thouglit 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 



