IB BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



Merlin or Hobby : in general the ground colour is 

 a sort of yellowish white, so much blotched with 

 various shades of rusty brown as to show very little 

 of the ground colour. Some again are minutely 

 speckled with yellowish rusty, hardly showing any 

 of the ground, which itself is more rufous than the 

 others. Some almost entirely sepia-brown, showing 

 very little of a lighter ground. They vary in size, 

 both in length and breadth. 



SPARROWHAWK, Accipiter Nisus. The Sparrow- 

 hawk is nearly, but not quite, as common in this 

 county as the Kestrel, and is much more destruc- 

 tive, both in the poultry-yard and in the game- 

 preserve : it is also much wilder and more difficult 

 to tame. 



I once tried to keep an adult female that had 

 been slightly wounded, but found her of a very 

 different disposition to the Kestrel, as she would 

 beat herself about in the cage, on the approach 

 of anyone, even of those who were in the habit 

 of giving her food, and in this way at last killed 

 herself. She lived long enough, however, to show 

 one decided difference to the Kestrel in her choice 

 of food, as she never showed any dislike to Star- 

 lings, but would eat them quite as readily as any 

 other small birds that were offered to her. Spar- 

 rowhawks have, however, been tamed and broken 

 in for hawking, even after having been taken in 

 an adult state ; for Sir John Sebright says he once 



