28 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 



and others, instantly muster at the summons and join in 

 hot pursuit. 



I have noticed on these occasions that linnets and 

 chaffinches usually follow in steady chase, while now and 

 then one more bold than his fellows will dart forward 

 and make a momentary attack on the hawk, and then 

 rejoin his companions; but the swallows, with much 

 greater power of wing, fly wildly to and fro, now darting 

 across his path, then shooting ahead, and again return- 

 ing, all the time uttering cries of fear and hostility. The 

 .sparrowhawk seems generally to hold all his noisy perse- 

 cutors in supreme contempt, excepting that now and 

 then his patience becomes exhausted, and with a fierce 

 sally he sacrifices one of them to his resentment. In 

 this it shows more spirit than the kestrel, which I have 

 often observed to be apparently annoyed, and more 

 anxious to escape such boisterous recognition than to 

 become the aggressor. 



I have often remarked how quickly the poultry in my 

 yard have caught sight of a kestrel or a sparrowhawk 

 on the wing. The watchful cock is generally the first 

 to utter his warning cry, which is immediately repeated 

 by the hens, and all, with head turned sideways, scan 

 the course of the intruder, those who have chickens in- 

 stantly calling them ogether for protection until the 

 danger is past. 



We hear from all parts of the country of the large 

 amount of damage done to the crops by woodpigeons. 

 In some districts of England and Scotland meetings 

 have been held to devise means for their destruction, 

 for they have enormously increased of late years. We 

 cannot wonder at this, for their natural enemies are un- 

 relentingly extirpated, and the sparrowhawk is especially 



