22 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 



leoHr/M of the escaped creature, and proceed to seek for a fresh 

 quarry. It builds its nest on some high tree; only the tree 

 selected is never found in the inner and deep parts of the wood 

 and forest. Like many other birds, both predatory and other, it 

 will often return to the same nest, adding whatever repairs may 

 be required, for several successive years. It lays three or fcmr 

 eggs, of a pale faint blue, quite untinged with any other colour. 



15. SPARROW-HAWK--r^^>e^r Nisns.J 



Sometimes called Pigeon-hawk. Another short-winged hawk, 

 as the last named also was, but vastly more common and familiarly 

 known. Some of the Falcons already named may be fitly called 

 bold, or fearless ; the Sparrow-hawk may be pronounced audaci- 

 ous, or impudent. If you hear some careful, Martha-like 

 housewife of a hen skirling and fussing, in dire alarm, her 

 terrified chicks, the while, seeking any possible shelter, you may 

 be almost certain that the gliding form you caught a glance of 

 rounding the corner of the barn and making a rapid, but by no 

 means noisy stoop, among the young poultry of various kinds in 

 lively attendance on their mothers, you may be tolerably sure 

 that" the intruder was a Sparrow-hawk, and that some hapless 

 Dove or Chicken has lost the number of his mess. Not that he 

 does not like wild game as well as tame poultry. Mr. Selby 

 mentions one nest, containing live young ones, in or close to 

 which were found a Peewit, two Blackbirds, a Thrush, and two 

 Green-finclMiS, all fresh, and half plucked. The Sparrow-hawk is 

 believed seldom to give itself the trouble of building a nest for 

 itself. Some old or deserted nest of the Crow or Magpie, 

 particularly the former, and whether in a fork of the tree or 

 high among its top, usually serves its turn ; and in this, very 

 slightly repaired if at all, the mother bird lays four or five 

 eggs, of a pale blueish white, abundantly and most variably 

 blotched with dark red brown. In some few eggs this darker 

 colour is more sparingly bestowed; but they are not frequent, 

 and, usually, the red is more or less confluent about some part of 

 the egg either end or the middle more rarely dispersed in 

 very distinct spots. Fig 7 3 plate I. 



16. KITRCMilvus vufyaris). 



Glead, Glade, Gled, Fork-tailed Kite or Glead, Puttock, 



Crotchet-tailed Puttock. 



One very rarely sees a Kite now-adays in our customary 

 Held ramblings and observings; though, to be sure, some one 

 did wrifo word not long since to the " Zoologist/' that he had 

 seen one sailing overhead as he walked the streets of London. 



