A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 



at Oakley and the woods at Gopsall, and further added 

 that he had seen one, shot in Oakley Wood by a game- 

 keeper named Monk. IntheMM/anJNatura/ist(l8$2, 

 p. 62, the late Dr. Macaulay reported one seen in Allex- 

 ton Wood in 1 88 1 ; but his informant, Mr. Davenport, 

 replying to my inquiries, stated that this was a mis- 

 conception of a verbal communication, and that so far 

 as he could recollect 'the taxidermist at Billesdon 

 (Potter by name) had in his shop for six or seven 

 years (if not more) a bird shot at Allexton by a 

 Mr. Brewster who once lived at Allexton Hall ; this 

 bird was said to be a gos-hawk.' Potter, on being 

 written to, confirmed this, but having since then seen 

 him, he informed me that the gentleman was in 

 America, therefore I am still in doubt whether a large 

 female sparrow-hawk has not done duty in this, as in 

 many similar cases, for the gos-hawk. 



103. Sparrow-Hawk. Acclpiter nisus (Linn.). 

 Resident and generally distributed. Twice I have 



seen this bold hawk dash over Museum Square, Leices- 

 ter ; the last time in the spring of 1887, so low as to 

 show the barred chest quite plainly ; just topping the 

 houses as it flew over the town. 



This species breeds at Knighton, whence I procured 

 a nest and five eggs in July, 1883. Mr. Davenport, 

 who found a sparrow-hawk nesting in Skeffington 

 Wood in March, 1884, wrote : ' She laid her first egg 

 oti 30 April, and continued laying in the same nest by 

 fits and starts until the first week in June, making four- 

 teen eggs in all from this nest ! This bird laid forty- 

 five eggs in five years : fourteen in 1879, four in 1880, 

 nine in 1881, four in 1882 (in 1883 I was in Corn- 

 wall), and fourteen in 1884. All the forty-five eggs 

 were very similar, and the five nests were all within a 

 radius of a hundred yards. In 1885 she disappeared.' 

 On my writing for confirmation, Mr. Davenport 

 replied : ' I am positive the birds are the same in each 

 instance. E.ich egg betokens a likeness to its neigh- 

 bour, and each year the brown markings on the eggs 

 were fewer and less defined. Sparrow-hawks I have 

 found patch up, flatten, clean, and enlarge the old 

 nests of magpies and carrion-crows, but I doubt their 

 ever building a new nest, as some authors assert they 

 do. At Keythorpe, from a nest in a fir-plantation, I 

 took fifteen eggs consecutively. After the fifteenth 

 egg I molested her no more. For three consecutive 

 years this bird adapted an old pigeon's nest for use in 

 one of the trees.' Mr. W. J. Horn writes in 1907 : 

 ' A neighbour brought me a male sparrow-hawk alive 

 and uninjured which he had caught in his garden.' 



104. Kite. Milvus ictinus, Savigny. 



Now extinct in the county. Mr. Babington 

 (Potter, op. cit. App. 66) wrote : ' One was 

 shot from a window at Longcliff, in the act of 

 watching tame young pigeons ' ; and Harley re- 

 marked that when he ' was a boy, the kite was 

 common and very widely known in the county,' 

 it not being an unusual sight to witness one glide 

 overhead towards the forest of Charnwood and its 

 bleak lone hills. He also stated that even in his day 

 it occasionally frequented Martinshaw, Groby Woods, 

 and the extensive belts of plantations flanking the 

 forest, and that in the wooded domains of Gopsall 

 and Donington the kite was not unknown. Further, 

 ' the species occurred at Belvoir Woods in the autumn 

 of 1850.' This is the last authentic dated record I 

 have of the occurrence of this species, and only Kite 



Hill, in the Forest of Charnwood, remains to remind 

 us that it was once sufficiently numerous to give its 

 name to this place, where no doubt it formerly nested. 

 The late Mr. Widdowson informed me, in 1886, that 

 he had received three or four during the last twenty- 

 five years. 



Colonel F. Palmer, of Withcote Hall, writing in 

 February, 1 888, said: 'We used many years ago, say fifty, 

 to have the kite in Owston Wood.' C. and T. Adcock, 

 writing in February, 1888, said : 'A regular visitor, 

 sixty-five years ago, to Bradgate Park. Our grandfather, 

 George Evans, told us that he had taken its nest 

 there.' 



105. Honey-Buzzard. Pernis aplvorus (Linn.). 



A rare summer visitant. Harley recorded that a 

 beautiful though immature example was shot by 

 Chaplin, the gamekeeper, at Martinshaw Wood, on 

 28 Oct., 1841. It was flushed from the ground, 

 where it was feeding on the larvae of the common 

 wasp. Its cry on being surprised resembled that 

 emitted by the barn-owl. A second example wa, 

 according to Harley, shot shortly afterwards in Lea 

 Wood, near Ulverscroft, and for want of a little 

 knowledge of its rarity and value was consigned to 

 the ferrets. I saw at Noseley Hall a specimen in 

 ordinary dark plumage, shot by Sir Arthur Hazlerigg 

 about 1872. I purchased a female specimen (in the 

 immature brown plumage), shot at Theddington, 

 1 8 June, 1879, by Mr. W. Hart, jun. This speci- 

 men is now in the possession of Mr. R. W. Chase, of 

 Edgbaston, Birmingham. I examined a dark specimen 

 in the possession of the late Mr. Widdowson, which 

 was procured nearTwyford Mill in September, 1881, 

 by a Mr. Greasley, who for several mornings had seen 

 it about and had attempted to shoot it, when, after 

 losing sight of it for two days, he was attracted to the 

 spot where it lay dead by a crowd of little birds sur- 

 rounding it. Apparently it had been killed by flying 

 against the telegraph-wires. The museum possesses 

 an immature male specimen in light snuff-coloured 

 plumage, taken at Croxton Park on 13 June, 1884. 



A fine female specimen was shot whilst perching in 

 a tree at Arnesby on 19 Sept., 1890, and was pre- 

 sented to the museum by Mr. J. Chamberlain. 



106. Peregrine Falcon. Fako peregrinus, Tunstall. 



Of rare occurrence and does not breed in the 

 county. Mr. Babington (Potter, op. cit. App. p. 66), 

 under date 1842, mentioned that 'a very fine female 

 specimen was shot five or six years ago, near the 

 Loughborough outwoods ' ; also that ' two, a male 

 and female, were killed at Gopsall about two years 

 ago.' These are without doubt the same recorded 

 by Harley, who was informed by Mr. Bloxam that 

 a pair were shot during the summer of 1838. He 

 further stated that Chaplin had met with it occasion- 

 ally at Bradgate, and it had been captured by Monk 

 in Oakley and Piper Woods. Harley also recorded it 

 from Donington, whilst the late Mr. R. Widdowson 

 appears to have known it to occur at Stapleford Park. 

 Turner reports a female shot by Mr. Berkeley at the 

 North Bridge, Leicester, some years since, while chas- 

 ing pigeons. In October, 1886, an immature female 

 specimen was obtained for the museum, said to have 

 been shot some eight years previously at Woodgate, 

 near the North Bridge, out of some high poplar-trees, 

 but I am rather doubtful as to the genuineness of this 

 statement. In May, 1886, the museum acquired an 



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