158 WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



from a little distance. At first the sitting hen 

 appeared to take no notice whatever, but pre- 

 sently grew more alert, and, suddenly springing 

 off her eggs, went away to join her mate, who, 

 judging from the skeletons of several peewits 

 lying on moss-grown knolls and fallen tree- 

 trunks round about, had in all probability brought 

 her some dainty morsel. She had not been gone 

 many minutes before the male pitched lightly on 

 the edge of the nest and admiringly examined 

 the eggs. I expected, from his interested de- 

 meanour, that he was about to sit down and 

 cover them, but after gratifying his vanity, he 

 dashed off like an arrow through a vista in the 

 trees, and I beheld him no more. 



The following day proved finer, and I suc- 

 ceeded in making a number of studies of the 

 sparrow-hawk at home, and then moved my 

 wood stack nearer still, and doubled its height. 

 The bird tried to neutralise this further familiarity 

 on my part in a strange way. She commenced 

 to fetch small dead birch twigs and place them in 

 position on the front edge of the nest, and I 

 photographed her with one in her bill, which, I 

 think, goes some way towards proving that the 

 species is capable of building its own nest, instead 

 of always adapting the old home of a crow 

 squirrel, magpie, or wood-pigeon, as some natur- 

 alists have contended. 



