10 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



honey-dew their milk, butter and cheese ? Such 

 flocks and herds they do keep and tend on oak 

 trees, as I discovered in Harewood Forest ; and 

 I wish that readers of this chapter who live in or 

 near a pine wood and are the happy possessors of 

 ladders forty or fifty feet long will make some 

 further investigation into the matter. 



My conclusion for the present is that wood- 

 pigeons and other birds that breed in the pines 

 do not build their nests in trees used by the ants. 



Let us now follow the fortunes of the young 

 sparrow-hawks, bred in a wood where people 

 inhabit. 



I watched them day by day, and, gradually, as 

 their fluffy coat was replaced by feathers, and 

 their lumpish appearance changed to the sharp- 

 cut hawk figure, they grew more adventurous and 

 would mount upon a branch accessible from the 

 nest, the maturest bird taking the lead, the others, 

 one by one, slowly and cautiously following. 

 Finally, all four would be on the branch at a dis- 

 tance of six to ten inches apart, the one nearest 

 the nest being always the least hawk-like in appear- 

 ance more lumpish and with more down on it 

 than the others. 



One morning in September I found the nest 

 empty ; the young had been persuaded to leave 

 for good early that morning. Just how they had 

 been persuaded feelingly, perhaps with sudden 

 smart blows it would have been a great thing to 

 witness, but I had never looked for it on account 



