278 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



of the birds enter their home, though from the opposite 

 side of the building I often baw them, disappear around 

 the cupola, and I knew they had gone within. The sharp 

 calls of the male, returning from an excursion with re- 

 freshment for his spouse brooding in the dark cavity, fre- 

 quently attracted my attention in the nesting time, and 

 he seemed to be a model husband in his faithful care for 

 her wants and his studied devotion to her pleasure. 



The regular quarters of these hawks are the dead trees 

 and stubs along the border of woods adjoining open mead- 

 ows and stumpy pastures. Deserted or unoccupied build- 

 ings in similar situations furnish them nooks and cavities 

 for nesting. They are by no means averse to the society 

 of man. Bradford Torrey compares the familiarity of 

 the St. Augustine sparrow hawks to that of village-bred 

 robins in Massachusetts. They are said to make them- 

 selves at home occasionally in the holes or lofts for the pi- 

 geons, and to live quietly with their neighbors under such 

 circumstances. They seem to be good-natured, doubtless 

 an effect of good living. When seated quietly on a perch 

 they resemble the mourning doves to the superficial ob- 

 server, though they sit more erect and droop the tail more 

 than the dove. It is amusing to watch the behavior of a 

 dove that has alighted near a sparrow hawk with the ex- 

 pectation of having a quiet tete-a-tete with a companion. 

 The first act of the dove after discovering her mistake is 

 to face away from her neighbor; then she gently moves 

 further away little by little until she seems to be out of 

 the reach of immediate harm, when she betakes herself 

 to hasty flight. At times in their flight, also, the sjmr- 

 row hawks might be confounded with the doves, both fre- 

 quently sailing downward in an oblique arc in the same 

 manner, though the hovering of the hawks and the 

 partly closed wings serve clearly to distinguish them. 



The flickers and red-headed woodpeckers are the build- 

 ers of the abodes of the sparrow hawks. Any cavities con- 

 structed by them are acceptable homes for the easy-going 

 little falcons. The holes in the gables of country churches, 

 chiseled out by woodpeckers at times when the tapping 

 aided in keeping awake the sleepy rural congregation as- 

 sembled on the Sabbath mornings of early spring, are 



