348 Wild Life in Wales 



better idea of their solidity may be gained by watching one 

 in course of construction. 



In walking up Aran, by way of Plas-in-Cwm-Cynllwyd, 

 on 2 yth May, I noticed a female Sparrow-Hawk carrying 

 a stick in her bill, and followed her to her nest. This she 

 was building in the hedge at the bottom of a wooded gully, 

 and advancing cautiously inside the wood, under cover of 

 a thick undergrowth of hazel, I was able to approach her 

 very closely, unobserved, and to watch her at work. The 

 nest was as yet scarcely more than begun, and was in a 

 birch forming part of the hedge ; the skeleton, so to speak, 

 of a large nest, nearly as big as a small clothes-basket, 

 more than a foot in depth, and most carefully put together. 

 Sitting within the nest, the bird was almost hidden from 

 view, save where the sides of the basketwork were not 

 yet too closely woven and could be seen through. I 

 watched her for some time intertwisting the twigs, and, 

 after she had left it, greatly admired the neatness of her 

 work. This, of course, was only the foundation for the 

 large collection of sticks upon which the eggs were ulti- 

 mately destined to be laid ; but how admirably it served 

 its purpose of holding the whole together, in a way that 

 would have been impossible of attainment without some- 

 thing of the kind, was a subject worthy of particular study. 

 Every branch used in the construction of this outside 

 basketwork was of birch, and chiefly such as was either 

 alive, or had not been long enough parted from its parent 

 tree to lose its pliability. When I visited the place again, 

 a few days later, the inside cavity had been all filled up with 

 branches, many of them of much larger dimensions than those 

 at first made use of, and the structure had lost its neatness ; 

 in the slight depression that remained on the nearly flat 

 platform of small twigs lay two eggs. 



The lining of small twigs is never neglected ; usually 

 these are of birch, or larch, but may be varied according to 

 circumstances. In any case, they are the most slender 

 branches that are to be obtained in the vicinity of the nest, 

 and only a cursory examination is needed to show that they 

 are not carelessly dropped upon its surface. Most of them 



