THE SPARROW HAWK 155 



the feast with a peculiar sharp cry. Though 

 sparrow hawks have various calls, including a 

 loud scream and a chattering cry, they are not 

 really noisy birds, and one does not hear them 

 nearly so often as the kestrel, which is much 

 more talkative. But, while the young are still 

 in the neighbourhood of the nest, they do scream 

 to some extent, probably to let their parents 

 know where they are, which often betrays them 

 to their enemy with the gun. 



As they get stronger on the wing they also 

 get more independent; the impulse to chase 

 small birds develops, at first it is merely play, 

 but there comes a day when they kill for them- 

 selves, after which they cease to resort to the 

 old nest. They are now independent of their 

 parents, yet for a little while they remain in 

 their company about the home wood, until the 

 autumn migration fever seizes them, as it does 

 so many other birds, when they join the hosts 

 that are moving South and cross to the Continent 

 for the winter. The old birds, I believe, do not 

 go with them, but stop at home ; at any rate 

 one sees sparrow hawks about the same haunts 

 all winter which do not look like birds of the 

 year. In the spring the young birds return, 

 and such is the havoc wrought by the keeper's 

 gun that they can usually find plenty of un- 

 occupied territory in which to settle down. 



Though it cannot be gainsaid that the sparrow 

 hawk kills great numbers of birds, including 

 young game-birds, yet the wholesale destruction 



