92 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP. xi. 



and carries it off, though the pigeon is twice or three times his 

 own weight. The woman who takes care of the poultry runs 

 out, but is too late to see anything more than a cloud of white 

 feathers, marking the place where the unfortunate pigeon was 

 struck. Its remains are, however, generally found at some little 

 distance ; and when this is the case, the hawk is sure to be caught, 

 as he invariably returns to what he has left, and my boys bring 

 the robber to me in triumph before many days elapse. Sometimes 

 he returns the same day to finish picking the bones of the bird, 

 but often does not come back for two or three. In the mean time, 

 whatever part of the pigeon he has left is pegged to the ground, 

 and two or three rat-traps are set round it, into one of which he 

 always contrives to step. When caught, instead of seeming 

 frightened, he flies courageously at the hand put down to pick 

 him up, and fights with beak and talons to the last. Occasionally, 

 when standing still amongst the trees, or even when passing 

 the corner of the house, I have been startled by a sparrowhawk 

 gliding rapidly past me. Once one came so close to me, that his 

 wing actually brushed my arm ; the hawk being in full pursuit 

 of an unfortunate blackbird. On another occasion, a sparrow- 

 hawk pursued a pigeon through the drawing-room window, and 

 out at the other end of the house through another window, and 

 never slackened his pursuit, notwithstanding the clattering of the 

 broken glass of the two windows they passed through. But the 

 most extraordinary instance of impudence in this bird that I ever 

 met with, was one day finding a sparrowhawk deliberately stand- 

 ing on a very large pouter-pigeon on the drawing-room floor, 

 and plucking it, having entered in pursuit of the unfortunate bird 

 through an open window, and killed him in the room. 



The sparrowhawk sometimes builds on rocks, and sometimes 

 in trees. Like all rapacious birds, he is most destructive during 

 the breeding-season. I have found a great quantity of remains 

 of partridges, wood-pigeons, and small birds about their nests ; 

 though it has puzzled me to understand how so small a bird can 

 convey a wood-pigeon to its young ones. There is more dif- 

 ference in size between the male and female sparrowhawk than 

 between the different sexes of any other birds of the hawk kind, 

 the cock bird being not nearly so large or powerful a bird as the 

 hen. Supposing either male or female sparrowhawk to be killed 



