o4 ‘BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 
15. SPARROW-HAWK—(Aceipiter Nisus.) 
Sometimes called Pigeon-Hawk.—Another short-winged hawk, 
as the last named also was, but vastly more common and familiarly 
xnown. Some of the Falcons already named may be fitly called 
bold, or fearless; the Sparrow-Hawk may be pronounced audaci- 
‘ous, or impudent. If you hear some careful, Martha-like 
housewife of a hen skirling and fussing, in dire alarm, her 
terrified chicks, the while, seeking any possible shelter, you may 
ne almost certain that the gliding form you caught a glance of 
rounding the corner of the barn and making a rapid, but by no 
means noisy stoop, among the young poultry of various kinds in 
lively attendance on their mothers,—you may be tolerably sure 
that the intruder was a Sparrow-Hawk, and that some hapless 
Dove or Chicken has lost the number of his mess. Not that he 
does not like wild game as well as tame poultry. Mr. Selby 
mentions one nest, containing five young ones, in or close to 
which were found a Peewit, two Blackbirds, a Thrush, and two 
Green-finches, all fresh, and half plucked. The Sparrow-Hawk is 
believed seldom to give itself the trouble of building a nest for 
itself. Some old or deserted nest of the Crow or Magpie, 
particularly the former, and whether in a fork of the tree or 
high among its top, usually serves its turn; and in this, very 
slightly repaired if at all, the mother bird lays four or five 
eggs, of a pale blueish white, abundantly and most variably 
blotched with dark red brown. In some few eggs this darker 
colour is more sparingly bestowed; but they are not frequent, 
and, usually, the red is more or less confluent about some part of 
the egg—either end or the middle—more rarely dispersed in 
very distinct spots.—lg 7, plate I. 
16. KITE—(Milvus vulgaris). 
Glead, Glade, Gled, Fork-tailed Kite or Glead, Puttock, 
Crotchet-tailed Putiock. 
