18 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSIIRE. 
Merlin or Hobby: in general the ground colour is 
a sort of yellowish white, so much blotched with 
various shades of rusty brown as to show very little 
of the ground colour. Some again are minutely 
speckled with yellowish rusty, hardly showing any 
of the ground, which itself is more rufous than the 
others. Some almost entirely sepia-brown, showing 
very little of a lighter ground. They vary in size, 
both in length and breadth. 
SPARROWHAWK, Accipiter Nisus. The Sparrow- 
hawk is nearly, but not quite, as common in thus 
county as the Kestrel, and is much more destruc- 
tive, both in the poultry-yard and in the game- 
preserve: itis also much wilder and more difficult 
to tame. 
I once tried to keep an adult female that had 
been slightly wounded, but found her of a very 
different disposition to the Kestrel, as she would 
beat herself about in the cage on the approach 
of anyone, even of those who were in the habit 
of giving her food, and in this way at last killed 
herself. She lived long enough, however, to show 
one decided difference to the Kestrel in her choice 
of food, as she never showed any dislike to Star- 
lings, but would eat them quite as readily as any 
other small birds that were offered to her. Spar- 
rowhawks have, however, been tamed and broken 
in for hawking, even after having been taken in 
an adult state; for Sir John Sebright says he once 
