170 ADDENDA 
become bold only when they are all together) 
it will often do its best to get away from them. 
Hawks have to get above their prey and 
swoop down on them and strike them dead 
generally with the first blow of their talons. 
They glide along with an easy grace, mount up, 
and then swoop down suddenly when arrested 
by what they think to be a mouse, or a bird, 
and then glide on again if they be mistaken. 
The veriest tyro in natural history will 
recognize a hawk by its fight. The long tails 
give the birds the shape of a cross when fly- 
ing. Itis at the end of April or beginning of 
May that the hen sparrow-hawk lays her 
four to six eggs, of a greyish-white colour 
tinged with blue, and marked irregularly with 
blotches of deep brown. I have seen their 
nests, which are shallow and built carelessly, 
something like those of pigeons (see Part II, 
p. 59), of sticks and twigs, high up chiefly 
in poplars near London. They also build 
in other trees, in cliffs, and sometimes lay 
in the old nest of a magpie built high. 
The female of this species is the larger (male 
