OV NATURE. 221 



hawks cannot always seize their game 

 when they please. We may farther ob- 

 serve, that they cannot pounce their quarry 

 on the ground, where it might be able to 

 make a stout resistance, since so large a 

 fowl as a pheasant could not but be visible 

 to the piercing eye of a hawk, when hover- 

 ing over the field. Hence that propensity 

 of cowring and squatting till they are 

 almost trod on, which no doubt was in- 

 tended as a mode of security : though long 

 irendered destructive to the whole race of 

 gallinae by the invention of nets and guns. 



White. 



Of the great boldness and rapacity of 

 birds of prey, when urged on by hunger, I 

 have seen several instances ; particularly, 

 when shooting in the Winter in company 

 with two friends, a woodcock flew across 

 us closely pursued by a small hawk ; we 

 all three fired at the woodcock instead of 

 the hawk, which, notwithstanding the 

 report of three guns close by it, continued 

 its pursuit of the woodcock, struck it down^ 



