222 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



sjoned not through the want of food, which would 

 be unworthy of the prince of the hawk tribe, but 

 through the ingratitude of the offspring. St. Basil 

 also remarks, that " hawks act with cruelty towards 

 their young, and when they are able to fly keep them 

 without food, and, as eagles do, drive them from 

 their nest with their beaks and talons : they teach 

 them, also, to be daring, and excite them to pursue 

 prey, lest, when full grown, their nature should be 

 dulled by sluggishness, and they should seek food 

 rather from habit than a ferocious disposition *." 

 Cassiodorus coincides with this opinion. " Hawks," 

 says he, " who live on prey, famish their young, 

 expel them from their nest, lest indolence should 

 render them tame and dull, strike them with their 

 wings, if they are unwilling to depart, and, at last, 

 compel them to flight that they may subsist, as their 

 fond parents anticipate t-" ./Elian also relates, that 

 *' in spring, hawks select two out of their whole 

 tribe, and despatch them into Egypt to examine 

 those desert islands, which are adjacent to Africa, 

 and these, after their return, become the leaders of 

 the rest to those places. The Lybians, moreover, 

 observe their peregrination with festal celebration. 

 When they arrive at those islands which the precur- 

 sors had considered most proper for their habitation, 

 they pair and incubate, and hunt pigeons and spar- 

 rows, redundantly supply their offspring with food, 

 and when they are strong enough to undertake the 

 flight, conduct them into Egypt, as their native set- 

 tlement J." 



But leaving these antique accounts of mingled 

 truth and fable, we are told by a recent observer, that 

 " the rook entices the young from the breeding trees 

 as soon as they can flutter to any other. These 



* In Hexam. f Epist.i.31. 



t De Anim. ii. 43. 



