WILDWOOD WAYS 



hunting noiselessly, ' no doubt for these 

 same sparrows. He flitted among the 

 treetops like a nervous flash of slaty 

 gray, and was gone so quickly that had 

 I not heard the welt of his wing tips on 

 the resisting air as he turned a sharp 

 corner I should never have seen him. 

 Most of our hawks, though well known 

 to take an occasional chicken, are mouse 

 and grasshopper eaters. The sharp- 

 shinned is the real chicken hawk, for he 

 eats more birds than anything else, 

 though the small songsters of the thicket 

 form the greater part of his diet. I have 

 rarely seen him here in winter, though 

 his summer nest is common in the deep 

 woods, with its cream-buff eggs heavily 

 blotched with chocolate brown. Just as 

 the plenitude of food of their kind kept 

 the song sparrows with us to enjoy the 

 mild weather, so I think the multitude 

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