HAWKS AND OWLS. 



be practised, on the borders of wide Hampshire downs, or 

 vast fenceless pastures of such counties as Northamptonshire 

 and the wolds beyond the Humber. Abroad, in India or 

 elsewhere, it might well be followed more keenly than it is. 



The economical value of vultures and kites as scavengers 

 or removers of " matter in the wrong place," is a considera- 

 tion of very little weight to the Englishman of to-day. He 

 leaves it to his Commissioners of Sewers, and they leave 

 it to the noble river that stinks through his capital; so 

 the vultures are not wanted ! Abroad they are invaluable 

 in this respect, and lesser hawks keep lizards, snakes, and 

 frogs within due limits of reproductiveness. 



Almost the only interest attaching to hawks at the 

 present time is with regard to game and game preserving. 

 What a debt of ill-will should the falcons owe to this com- 

 paratively new hobby that has been their ruin ! We can 

 imagine a kite, in days when kites were common, wheeling 

 in easy circles over the open courtyard of some British^ 

 Roman villa, located on the pleasant south coast or Isle of 

 Wight, and watching with prophetic wonder the praetorian's 

 black-eyed children feeding and teasing a pair of pheasants, 

 two of the few, or even the very first in the island. How 

 well justified might have seemed the kite's harsh laugh 

 as he took another turn in the blue to glance again at the 

 fresh importations and calculate on the chances of a successful 

 swoop through the open corridors ! Who could have fancied 

 those brilliant but defenceless birds with the ostentatious 

 length of tail would sweep the enemy overhead from Saxon 

 skies, making a kite a few hundred years subsequently 

 a rarer sight than they were that day themselves ? Yet 

 so it has turned out, to the chagrin of naturalists, and almost 

 the whole hierarchy of the air has gone with the gledes. 

 I would like to suggest in these pages (and all our most 

 recent information tends to justify us) that in many cases 

 where hawks are ruthlessly persecuted their destruction is 

 absolutely unnecessary, the despotic barbarity of ignorant 



