SPARROW HAWK. 047 



hawk skimming along- at some distance. It soon dis- 

 appeared, when 1 resumed my occupation. The birds 

 were at this time only a faw yards from one of the 

 ploughs, and I was waiting to get a shot without fright- 

 ening the horses, when in a moment something came 

 down obliquely through the air, and lighted among the 

 titlarks. The motion was so rapid that I could not 

 distinctly see the object, until a moment after, when it 

 rose and quickly flew away in the form of a sparrow 

 hawk, bearing in its claws one of the poor pipits. 



At another time, while walking in one of the squares 

 of Edinburgh (Moray Place), on the outside of the 

 railing of its central shrubbery, I was startled by a 

 whizzing noise, like that of a heavy body falling to the 

 ground, when I perceived that, within three yards of 

 me, a sparrow hawk had plunged after a thrush, which 

 had sought refuge in the bushes. The hawk, notwith- 

 standing the rapidity of its flight, thrid its way among 

 the twigs, and next moment appeared in open day, 

 bearing off its prey in its talons. It is doubtless on 

 such occasions that the long, expansile, extremely mo- 

 bile tail of the sparrow hawk comes into full play. 

 In the island of Harris, where thrushes are very nu- 

 merous, I have on two occasions seen one escape from 

 the pursuit of a sparrow hawk, by flying into a house, 

 and I have heard of other instances, for these hawks 

 are also very numerous there. 



The Sparrow Hawk, although among the smallest of 

 our birds of prey, is by no means the least destructive 

 to the feathered inmates of the farm-yard, although it 

 does not venture to attack grown up fowls. " It is a 

 great destroyer of game and young poultry," says 



