350 FALCONID.E ACCIPITER 



as bold and fearless as others endowed with twice its strength ; it is 

 a bush-loving bird and a very swift flyer. It will twist and turn 

 with great dexterity among the branches of trees when in pursuit of 

 its prey. It will attack fowls and young ducks, pouncing down 

 with an oblique swoop, and not from above as is the case with other 

 hawks. 



A nest, found by Mr. Eriksson's collector on October 13th on the 

 Limpopo river, was placed in a mimosa tree and was built of sticks. 

 It contained three eggs of a chalky-white ground colour much 

 blotched and clouded with brown and dull greyish-purple. 



The Woodwards kept one of these birds in captivity, but it never 

 lost its savage nature and would not allow any other birds to be 

 confined with it. 



540. Accipiter rufiventris. African Sparrow Hawk. 



Accipiter rufiventris, Smith, S. Afr. Quart. Journ. i, p. 231 (1830) ; id. 

 III. Zool. S. Afr. Aves, pi. 93 (1844) ; Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 29 

 (1867) ; Gurney in Andersson's B. Damaraland, p. 32 (1872) ; 

 Sharpe, Cat, B. M. i, p. 148 (1874) ; id. ed. Layard's B. S. Afr. 

 pp. 22, 796 (1875-84) ; Gurney, Ibis, 1875, p. 478 ; Ayres, Ibis, 

 1876, p. 422 [Lydenburg] ; Butler, Feilden, and Reid, Zool. 1882, 

 p. 169 [Newcastle] ; Shelley, B. Afr. i, p. 153 (1896) ; Woodward 

 Bros. Natal B. p. 143 (1899) ; Beichenow, Vog. Afr. i, p. 560 

 (1901). 



Falco exilis, Temm. PI. Col. i, pi. 496 (juv.) (May, 1830). 



Nisus rufiventris, Grill, K. Vet. AJcad. Handl. ii, no. 10, p. 48 (1858) 

 [Knysna]. 



Accipiter exilis, Gurney, Ibis, 1859, p. 243, 1860, p. 204 [Natal]. 



" Unhloile " of Natal Zulus [Woodward]. 



Description. Adult male. Above, dark slate coloured with con- 

 cealed white bases to the feathers of the nape and scapulars ; wing- 

 quills brown, banded with darker brown on the inner web with 

 interspaces becoming white towards the bases of the feathers ; tail 

 tipped with white and crossed by four darker bands ; in the paler 

 inner spaces the shafts of the feathers show a tendency to whiteness ; 

 chin, throat, and under tail-coverts white, rest of the under surface 

 including the thighs and the under wing-coverts chestnut. 



Iris yellow ; bill black ; cere greenish-yellow ; legs lemon-yellow, 

 claws black. 



Length 13-0 ; wing 8-25 ; tail 6-0 ; culmen 0-70 ; tarsus 2-0. 



The female is very much larger and the rufous of the lower 



