BirpDs OF PREY. 175 
A much smaller and far more destructive bird is 
the common Pigeon-hawk, also a true falcon, and 
abreast of any of its fellows in all falconine traits. 
It is a northern species that comes southward in 
autumn, and as single birds, or in pairs, wander 
about where there are small birds in abundance. 
They are very fatal to the flocks of hofned larks, 
chase flocks of blackbirds until they scatter them, 
and have been known to enter dove-cots and destroy 
the pigeons. Wilson supposes that they do not winter 
in the Middle States, but this is an error. 
The Sparrow-hawk is everywhere, and equally 
happy whether the thermometer registers zero or 
100° in the shade. Give it a chance to go mousing 
and it asks nothing, except per- 
haps an opportunity to vary its 
diet with a sparrow. 
I do not know that these beau- 
tiful birds care much for dense 
forests, and I seldom have seen 
them in our great tide-water 
marshes; but is there a field in 
the whole land over which, at 
some time, they have not hov- 
ered? Their flight is not ma- 
jestic like the eagle’s, nor as er- 
ratic as the swallow’s, but there 
is a grace in their movements, a 
general “at-homeness,” if I may Sparrow-hawk. 
coin the word, in the air that is 
delightful to witness. Darting with apparent reck- 
lessness across the field, suddenly the bird stops, 

