GOSHAWK. 71 



cover, and we lost the Hawk : at ten o'clock next morning 

 the falconer found her, and just as he had lifted her, the 

 Pheasant ran and rose." 



As the flight of the Goshawk is low, and it takes its 

 prey near the ground, the females were flown at hares and 

 rabbits : the males, which are much smaller, were flown at 

 partridges. 



The Goshawk is a rare species in the South of England, 

 and the few that are used for hawking are obtained from 

 the Continent. Colonel Thornton, who kept them con- 

 stantly in Yorkshire, procured some of his specimens from 

 Scotland. Dr. Moore, in his catalogue of the birds of 

 Devonshire, says that it is found occasionally on Dart- 

 moor ; but I can find no record of its appearance further 

 west in England, nor any notice of it in Ireland. A fine 

 adult male was trapped by a gamekeeper in Suffolk in 

 March, 1833 ; and Mr. Doubleday, of Epping, has sent 

 me word that he received a young bird from Norfolk in 

 the spring of the same year. Mr. Selby mentions that he 

 had never seen a recent specimen south of the Tweed ; but 

 states that it is known to breed in the forest of Rothie- 

 murcus, and on the wooded banks of the Dee. Mr. Low 

 says that this species is pretty frequent in Orkney ; but as 

 he speaks of it in connection with sea-beaten rocks with- 

 out shelter or woods, is there not reason to suspect that 

 Mr. Low was mistaken, and that the birds he saw were 

 Peregrine Falcons, the more so as several recent visitors 

 to these northern islands have observed Peregrines, but 

 no Goshawks ? 



Since the publication of the former edition of this work, 

 a Goshawk killed near Dalkeith is noticed by Sir W. Jar- 

 dine, Bart., as the only Scotch specimen he had seen in a 

 fresh state. Three examples were killed in Northumber- 

 land during the winter of 1841, and two specimens in the 

 county of Norfolk since that time. 



