VOL. X.] HABITS OF SPARROW-HAWK. 51 



for some minutes after being captured, and it was put to 

 death slowly and cruelly. Of course the grip of the hawk 

 often kills a small bird ver}^ quickly, but if this is not so 

 he does not seem to know how to kill. It seems quite a 

 matter of chance what part of the victim ^\dll be eaten 

 first ; sometimes the head is torn off, sometimes the back 

 is the starting-point, and not infrequently the entrails 

 are devoured first. On a few occasions the cock has left 

 a whole bird at the nest and I have been lucky enough 

 to examine the carcasses. Nearly always I have found 

 a small dint in the base of the back of the skull, but this 

 may always be accidental. Larger game, such as Black- 

 birds and Starlmgs, must suffer terrible agony before life 

 is extinct. The hawk bears such down to the ground, 

 and depresses the wings and tail against the ground and 

 thus to a large extent prevents the victim struggling. 

 It makes horrid womids in the back of the captive and 

 also in the head and neck, even at times blinding it. 



Since the cock bird works upwind, one would expect 

 him to come back downwind to the nest wood, but tliis 

 is not altogether the case. Our united observations 

 show that the favourite approach is practically across 

 the wind. On nearing the edge of the wood he turns 

 again shghtly upwind and ahglits on a tree, so that the 

 nest is dead downwind. To get to the wood he seems 

 to plane nearly the whole way ; he holds the victim in 

 one foot, which hangs at full length or nearly so ; his 

 wings are extended and horizontal ; there is no visible 

 movement that I could ever see, but perhaps his wings 

 move in slight and rapid movements invisible, even at a 

 short distance, to the naked eye. He keeps a horizontal 

 course the whole way, and at a height which will carry 

 him comfortably clear of all tree-tops. At a distance 

 he may easily be mistaken, when first seen, for a Wood- 

 Pigeon performing its planing flights, except that the hawk 

 does not vary his altitude or pace. 



Having arrived at the wood, he usually perches at some 

 distance from the nest and gives a low " kew-kew-kew." 



