110 SPARROW-HAWK. 
privateer against every thing that sails in its way—a modern 
specimen of ‘Sir Andrew Barton, Knight.’ It will fearlessly 
attack in the most pugnacious manner even the monarch of 
the air—the Golden Eagle, and has been known so far to obtain 
the mastery, as to make him drop a grouse which he had made 
a prize of: one has been seen after a first buffet, to turn 
again and repeat the insult; and another dashed in the same 
way at a tame Sea Eagle of R. Langtry, Esq., of Fortwillam, 
near Belfast. 
The Sparrow-Hawk occasionally perches on some projection 
or eminence of earth, stone, or tree, from whence it looks out 
for prey. If successful in the ken, it darts suddenly off; or 
if otherwise, launches into the air more leisurely. When 
prowling on the wing, it sweeps along, apparently with no 
exertion, swiftly, but gently and stealthily, at one moment 
eliding without motion of the wings, and then seeming to 
acquire an impetus for itself by flapping them; every obstacle 
in the way being avoided with the most certain discrimination, 
or surmounted with an aerial bound. Sometimes for a few 
moments it hovers over a spot, and after flying on a hundred 
yards or so, repeats the same action, almost motionless in the 
air. Its flight is at times exceedingly rapid, and it was 
formerly employed in the art of falconry, for hunting par- 
tridges, landrails, and quails. It often flies late in the evening. 
‘During the course,’ says Sir William Jardine, ‘some stone, 
stake, or eminence is often selected for a temporary rest; the 
station is taken up with the utmost lightness—the wings 
closed with a peculiar quiver of the tail, and the attitude 
assumed very nearly perpendicular, when it often remains a 
few minutes motionless; the flight is again resumed with as 
little preparatory movement as it was suspended.’ It takes 
its prey both in the air and on the ground, but so great 
is the celerity of its flight, that a spectator sometimes cannot 
tell whether it has seized it on the latter or in the former 
element. 
Unlike the Kestrel, which has a predilection for quadrupeds, 
the food of this species consists principally of the smaller 
birds, and some that are larger—snipes, larks, Jays, blackbirds, 
swallows, sparrows, lapwings, buntings, pigeons, partridges, 
thrushes, pipits, linnets, yellow-hammers, bullfinches, finches, 
as also, occasionally, mice,, cockchaffers and other beetles, 
grasshoppers, and even sometimes when in captivity, its own 
species: small birds are devoured whole, even legs and all; 
