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GOSHAWK. 143 
it is found throughout Siberia up to the limit of forest growth, Asia Minor, 
North Palestine, Persia, Turkestan, the Himalayas, Mongolia, and North 
China. In India it is occasionally seen on the plains during the cold 
season. 
The Goshawk is a giant Sparrow-Hawk. In spite of his comparatively 
short wings, he is a bird of very powerful flight and of undaunted courage. 
_ He disdains to eat carrion, and will scarcely stoop to catch a sitting bird. 
He hunts on the wing, and nothing is safe from his attacks, from a Sparrow 
to a Grouse, or from a mouse to a young roe. The Goshawk has the 
reputation of being a very bloodthirsty bird, killing more game than he 
can possibly eat. This bird is essentially a forest one, and in summer 
confines himself principally to the woods and the open places in their im- 
mediate neighbourhood ; but late in autumn and winter he extends the 
range of his hunting-grounds, pursuing Partridges and hares, and 
making raids on the pigeons belonging to the farmers, and sometimes 
snatching the game from under the very nose of the sportsman. The Gos- 
hawk, however, is a Hawk, and not a Falcon; and his powers of flight are 
not sufficient to enable him to fly down a bird when it has fairly got under 
weigh; consequently he resorts to artifice, stealing upon his prey from 
behind some cover, and dashing upon it unawares. Naumann describes 
the alarm-note as a shrill keerk-keerk-keerk, very similar to that of the 
Sparrow-Hawk ; and besides this he has a call-note, a deep gyuk-gyak-gyak, 
much resembling a similar note of the Peregrine. 
The Goshawk very seldom perches on the ground or on a stone, or on 
the topmost twig of a tree. Its favourite food is pigeons and ducks. 
Where the Goshawk is a resident bird, it is a very early breeder, the 
eggs being laid in the second half of April or the first half of May. It 
generally selects a lofty beech for the situation of its nest, which is usually 
placed at some considerable elevation from the ground in one of the main 
forks. It also breeds in oaks and pine trees ; and, even when systematically 
robbed, it will breed year after year in the same nest. On the 7th of May 
last, Herr Kroll showed me a nest in an oak tree from which he had taken 
eggs uearly every year for the last eighteen years. Early in June I saw 
several nests in Pomerania, from one of which the bird flew off. One 
of these was built in the fork of a beech tree 75 feet from the ground, 
and was an enormous structure, measuring at least four feet by two. It 
builds a deeper nest than the Eagles or the Buzzards, and lines it with fine 
twigs, roots, moss, and lichens, but not green leaves. The largest nests 
are most probably the oldest, and have been added to year after year. All 
the nests I saw were in the forests, but not at any great distance from the 
outskirts. The statement that this bird sometimes builds on rocks should 
be received with great caution. The usual number of eggs is four; but it 
occasionally lays three, and sometimes five. They are very pale bluish 
