138 BRITISH BIRDS. 



In wandering through the depths of the woods or the closest thickets, 

 you will sometimes notice a heap of feathers ; these are the remnants of the 

 Sparrow-Hawk's meal. Search closer and you will probably find portions 

 of the skull and entrails of the victim ; and by your knowledge of the 

 plumage of birds you will also be enabled to tell what little chorister has 

 been destroyed. These remnants are most frequently found on elevated 

 places a moss-covered rock, large stone, or even the broad horizontal limb 

 of a tree. The Sparrow-Hawk does not consume many of the feathers, 

 except inadvertently, the wing and tail-feathers being invariably rejected ; 

 but most of the bones are eaten, as also, in the case of small birds, the 

 feet. The refuse of the bird's food is ejected in the form of pellets, after 

 the manner of all raptorial birds. The food of the Sparrow-Hawk is 

 chiefly composed of the smaller birds up to the size of a Thrush, although 

 he is capable of destroying, and does destroy, much larger birds, as Par- 

 tridges and Pigeons ; and in the poultry-yard his depredations are consi- 

 derable, especially when the young chicks are about. Most of the small 

 birds are his victims, more or less the Bunting on the hedgerow, the Pipit 

 cowering in the meadow-grass, the Robin and Accentor in the garden, 

 and the Creeper and Wren in amongst the trees, as also the various 

 species of Finches and Warblers. But birds do not form the Sparrow- 

 Hawk's only fare. Sometimes you see him dip silently and swiftly down 

 amongst the marshy vegetation in old watercourses and bear off a rat or 

 frog ; and field-mice, leverets, and young rabbits are often victims of his 

 rapacity : indeed a young rabbit is a favourite bait with gamekeepers to 

 lure this little Hawk to his doom. The Sparrow- Hawk seems to love the 

 evening's dusk the best for searching for his food ; and darkness is often 

 falling round, wrapping the evergreens and thickets in dense obscurity, as 

 he glides rapidly past you into their gloomy foliage to his roosting-place. 



The Sparrow-Hawk is a somewhat late breeder, its nest being seldom 

 found before early May. The probable cause of this lateness is that, 

 like the Kestrel, it does not begin to breed until the woods and fields 

 are replete with those migratory birds that form its chief support during 

 the summer months. Notwithstanding the belief to the contrary, the 

 Sparrow-Hawk always builds its own nest. Certainly it is not because 

 no old nests are accessible ; for the Carrion-Crow and the Magpie build 

 in plenty all around, and their deserted nests are on every side ; still it shuns 

 them all and makes its own. Varied indeed are the sites selected for the 

 purpose. You find it in the deepest woods, in the oak probably more 

 frequently than in any other tree ; you see it midway up the alder bor- 

 dering the stream flowing through the coppice ; and it is not unfre- 

 quently built in a pine tree. Hewitson says this bird occasionallv builds 

 on a rock ; but I have never heard of an authenticated instance of its doing 

 so. The nest is very rarely found on the topmost branches ; it is always 



