LIFE IN A PINE WOOD 7 



smoothest trunks with the ease and at the same 

 rate of speed as when moving on the surface. 

 They are seen ascending and descending all day 

 long in countless numbers, so that the entire tree- 

 top must be swarming with them, searching every 

 twig and every needle ; and being ants and 

 ready to fasten their jaws on any provender, dead 

 or alive, without regard to the size of the object, 

 the newly-hatched young wood-pigeons or magpies 

 can be no safer in their lofty cradles than the 

 robin or willow- wren fledgelings in their nest on the 

 ground. 



Unfortunately, when I got to this point it was 

 too late in the season to follow the matter much 

 further, since most of the birds had finished breed- 

 ing. Whether all or most of them had been suc- 

 cessful or not I was not able to discover ; however, 

 the young were not yet out of the one nest which 

 interested me the most. This was the sparrow- 

 hawks', and was in the lowest branches of a tall, 

 slim pine about forty-five feet from the ground. 

 It was an exceptionally big nest. The birds, I 

 knew, had brought off their young successfully in 

 this same wood in the three previous years, and I 

 came to the conclusion that the same nest had 

 been used every time and had grown to its present 

 size by the addition of fresh materials each season. 

 By standing on a high mound situated at a dis- 

 tance of fifty yards from the tree I could, with my 

 binocular, get a perfect sight of the four young 

 hawks on their platform, looking like owls with 



