36 Birds of Lakeside and Prairie 



the passage of light upon what was doubtless "a morsel of a 

 mouse." 



We met another sparrow hawk within a hundred rods. 

 The bird was abundant, and the people told me that it was a 

 permanent resident in southern Indiana. I was interested in 

 the actions of this second little hawk, because although it was 

 only the first week in March, I believe it was hunting a nest- 

 ing site. It was screaming as shrilly as did its brother first 

 met, and all the small birds of the neighborhood were under 

 cover. The sparrow hawk makes its home in a hole in a tree. 

 This particular bird flew to a cottonwood that was bare of 

 branches for a long distance from the ground. It disappeared 

 so suddenly after reaching the tree that our curiosity was 

 aroused, and we left the stave-splitter and his wagon and 

 started for the cottonwood. The tree stood alone, and the 

 hawk could not leave it without being seen. We searched 

 with our glasses, but found no trace of the bird. Half-way 

 up the trunk, however, we discovered a hole. My companion 

 picked up a club and pounded on the tree. The sparrow 

 hawk came out of the hole with a rush, and screamed "Killy," 

 as he flew away, and I haven't the least doubt it meant it, 

 for we probably angered him by interfering with its affairs. 

 Several days afterward I saw the hawk go into the same hole, 

 and had the feat been possible, I should have climbed the 

 tree to see if I could not find a nest and eggs, and thus establish 

 the fact that the sparrow-hawk gets him a home at a much 

 earlier date than the scientists put it down in the books. 



The chickadee, the cheerful little character in feathers 

 beloved of Emerson and Thoreau, tells the same lisping tale 

 and performs the same dizzy gymnastic feats in the lindens 

 along Lost River that he does in the elms on Concord's 



