40 AMERICAN SPARROW HAWK. 



up found the small field sparrow (fig. 2,) quivering in his grasp. 

 Both our aims had been taken in the same instant, and, unfor- 

 tunately for him, both were fatal. It is particularly fond of 

 watching along hedge rows, and in orchards, where those small 

 birds, represented in the same plate, usually resort. When 

 grasshoppers are plenty they form a considerable part of its 

 food. 



Though small snakes, mice, lizards, &c. be favourite morsels 

 with this active bird; yet we are not to suppose it altogether 

 destitute of delicacy in feeding. It will seldom or never eat of 

 any thing that it has not itself killed, and even that, if not (as 

 epicures would term it) in good eating order, is sometimes re- 

 jected. A very respectable friend, through the medium of Mr. 

 Bartram, informs me, that one morning he observed one of 

 these Hawks dart down on the ground, and seize a mouse, 

 which he carried to a fence post; where, after examining it for 

 some time, he left it; and, a little while after, pounced upon 

 another mouse, which he instantly carried off to his nest, in the 

 hollow of a tree hard by. The gentleman, anxious to know 

 why the hawk had rejected the first mouse, went up to it, and 

 found it to be almost covered with lice, and greatly emaciated ! 

 Here was not only delicacy of taste, but sound and prudent 

 reasoning. " If I carry this to my nest," thought he, " it will 

 fill it with vermin; and hardly be worth eating." 



The Blue Jays have a particular antipathy to this bird, and 

 frequently insult it by following and imitating its notes so ex- 

 actly as to deceive even those well acquainted with both. In 

 return for all this abuse the hawk contents himself with, now 

 and then, feasting on the plumpest of his persecutors; who are 

 therefore in perpetual dread of him; and yet, through some strange 

 infatuation, or from fear that if they lose sight of him he may 

 attack them unawares, the Sparrow Hawk no sooner appears 

 than the alarm is given, and the whole posse of Jays follow. 



The female of this species, which is here faithfully represent- 

 ed from a very beautiful living specimen, furnished by a parti- 

 cular friend, is eleven inches long, and twenty-three from tip 



