GOSHAWK. 105 



been cast in towns, who have never seen even so common a 

 sight as this. I well remember, travelling some years ago on 

 a stage coach over the Dorsetshire Downs, a lady who was 

 going clown into Devonshire with her son from London, seeing 

 some gleaners in a field, observed that they were the first she 

 had seen that year: 'they are the first,' said the youth, 'that 

 I have ever seen in my life.' 



This bird for the most part flies low in pursuit of its prey, 

 which it attacks from below or sideways, not from above like 

 other Falcons, but occasionally it soars at a considerable 

 elevation, wheeling round and round with extended tail, in 

 slow and measured gyrations. Its flight is very quick, though 

 its wings are short, and its game is struck in the air, if belong- 

 ing to that element. 



The food of the Goshawk, which is carried into its retreat 

 in the woods, to be devoured there without interruption, consists 

 of hares, rabbits, and sometimes mice; and of pigeons, pheasants, 

 partridges, grouse, wild-ducks, crows, rooks, magpies, and other 

 birds. 'According to Meyer,' says Selby, 'it will even prey 

 upon the joung of its own species.' Living prey alone is 

 sought, and before being devoured it is plucked carefully of 

 the fur or feathers very small animals are swallowed whole, 

 but the larger are torn in pieces, and then swallowed: the 

 hair or fur is cast up in pellets. Sometimes a pigeon is 

 heedlessly folowed into a farm-yard, and sometimes the 'biter 

 is bit' in the ignoble trap, in the act of attempting, like the 

 Kestrel, to carry off the decoy birds of the fowler. Its appetite, 

 though it is i shy bird, leads it into these difficulties, and so, 

 again, when replete with food, and enjoying, it may be, a quiet 

 'siesta,' the sportsman steals a march, and down falls the noble 

 Goshawk. Ya;rell says that in following its prey, 'if it does 

 not catch the dbject, it soon gives up the pursuit, and perching 

 on a bough waits till some new game presents itself.' 



'Its mode of hunting,' says Bishop Stanley, 'was to beat a 

 field, and when a covey was sprung to fly after them, and 

 observe where tley settled; for as it was not a fast flyer, the 

 Partridges could\outstrip it in speed: it then sprung the covey 

 again, and after k few times the Partridges became so wearied 

 that the Hawk generally succeeded in securing as many as it 

 pleased. To catch it a trap or two was set in its regular 

 beat, baited with k small rabbit, or the stuffed skin of one ; 

 but a surer mode,\ particularly in open unenclosed countries, 

 was by preparing what were called bird-bushes, about half-a-mile 



