A VILLAGE IN HAMPSHIRE 181 



one rather of philosophy than beauty. This hawk can 

 nearly always be distinguished from the kestrel at a 

 distance, not only because you are much less likely 

 to see it from its greater rarity and its habit of flying 

 closer to the ground, beating the hedgerows and slipping 

 among the shadows of the trees, but from the peculiar 

 and deadly stealth of the flight. One day in early June 

 a sparrow-hawk flew close by me as I was walking 

 in the meadows, between the hangars and the pond, 

 and began prowling about the fringe of trees border- 

 ing the water. Suddenly, a pair of willow-wrens sallied 

 out from the rank growth, where they had their domed 

 nest by the water's edge, and attacked her with 

 fury. They swooped fiercely at her, and she avoided 

 them by doubling to and fro. But not for long, for 

 all at once she turned tail and bolted for the wood, 

 pursued for a few yards by the warblers. Many 

 small birds will, of course, attack a hawk en volage, 

 so to speak, and out of business hours, especially 

 swallows, starlings and wagtails. But this was some- 

 thing different. How, then, did these willow-wrens 

 put their special and terrible enemy, against whom 

 they were utterly defenceless, to such ignominious 

 flight ? By the exercise of precisely the same moral 

 conviction (apart from imaginative insight and con- 

 ceptual power) that made Shelley write Prometheus. 

 In the nesting season, birds are literally inspired. 

 They turn over an intoxicating new leaf of life, as the 

 pupa is transformed to the butterfly. Indeed, I 

 greatly doubt whether the sparrow-hawk picks up any 

 nestlings during the breeding season, except when the 

 young have left the nest or the parent birds are absent. 

 Any pair of adult birds, or even single birds at the 

 nest, could rout it, simply because at that time they 

 possess the supreme faculty of devotion and self-forget- 

 fulness it is without. The difference between their 

 inspiration and its routine is enough to turn the 

 tables. Such is the power of a good cause, for later 

 in the year those same birds when they see that 

 same hawk will scream and dive into the bushes with 

 terror. 



