J54 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



community of small birds into fearful alarm. He is the 

 terror of the sparrows and finches, the dire enemy of all 

 the swift-winged birds, and the swallows seem to take 

 especial delight in mobbing him whenever they can, their 

 scream of alarm giving warning to the general confraternity ; 

 but by his stealthy and quiet manner of approaching his 

 prey he is pretty sure of his game. Knox (" Ornithological 

 Rambles ") says : " The depredations of this little tyrant 

 of the woods and groves certainly surpass those of any 

 other British bird of prey." Tennyson calls him " the 

 hedgerow thief." 



Seebohm says that "birds do not form the sparrow-hawk's 

 only fare ; sometimes you see him dip silently and swiftly 

 down amongst the marshy vegetation of old watercourses 

 and bear off a rat or a frog." Young rabbits and leverets 

 fall to his unerring swoop, and in Scotland he fearlessly 

 attacks the wood-pigeons, and does some good in this 

 respect to the farmer; and by taking the weakly game- 

 birds it helps to keep disease away, and preserve that 

 healthy standard of perfection which nature inexorably de- 

 mands. But, on the other hand, no rapacious bird is more 

 to be dreaded by the gamekeeper or the chicken-breeder. 



The sparrow-hawk has a mythological history. Nisus 

 was transformed into this bird after his daughter's trea- 

 cherous conduct, she being at the same time changed into 

 a lark, so that the two should be continually antagonistic 

 to each other ; as Chaucer says, in his " Troilus and 

 Cressida : " 



" What might or more the sely lark say 

 When that the sparhawke hath him in his foote ? " 



The male bird has a very graceful form and hand- 

 some plumage. The upper surface of the back and head 

 of a dark-blue slate, with one small* spot of white on the 

 nape of the neck; the eyes orange; the chin, throat, and 

 under-parts a reddish-brown, with dark transverse bars ; 

 legs and toes yellow. The female is a dark brown on 

 back, &c., with the under-parts a greyish-white and 

 barred. 



