CHAPTER XLI 



Nests of birds of prey Sparrow- Hawk's nest Nest-building instincts- 

 Hawks not deserting nests Moving a nest As bright as a Hawk's eye 

 Method in its madness Repairing damaged feathers Mesmeric 

 power of animals Powers of Vision Birds recognising different kinds 

 of Hawks. 



BIRDS of prey are not, as a rule, given much credit for 

 their efforts in nidification, and, generally, they do not 

 deserve it ; but there is one notable exception that must 

 be made to such a rule, and that is in regard to one of 

 the most common of them all, in this country, viz. the 

 Sparrow-Hawk. Few people who are at all familiar with 

 our birds, or have done much birdsnesting, have not, at 

 some time, seen a nest of this species probably they may, 

 more than once, have assisted to rob one, but how few 

 have really paid any attention to it is evident from the 

 discussions, which from time to time take place, on the 

 subject of whether the Sparrow-Hawk builds a nest of its 

 own, or takes possession of that of some other bird. When, 

 owing to the destruction of a first nest, or from some similar 

 accidental cause, time is pressing, a Sparrow-Hawk may, 

 occasionally, appropriate another nest to her use, and with, 

 or without, addition to it, lay her eggs thereon ; but such 

 cases must, at any rate, be of rare occurrence. Personally, 

 the writer has never seen anything of the kind, every nest 

 he has examined (and these must have run up to certainly 

 not less than a hundred) having been unmistakably of the 

 hawk's own making, and only once or twice has he seen a 

 previous year's nest resorted to. That the nests are not 

 the flimsy and slovenly collections of sticks which they 

 appear, is evident from the manner in which they persist 

 in trees, sometimes for several years after they have been 

 constructed, as well as by the way in which, when kicked 

 from a tree, they will fall, en masse, to the ground. A still 



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