10G A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 

 than harm ; and the kestrel, if he ever does any 

 harm, pays for it a hundred-fold by his tireless 

 industry in keeping down mice and voles. Once we 

 carefully watched for several weeks the nests of 

 three pairs of sparrow-hawks ; and among the re- 

 mains of their feasts the legs of only one young 

 pheasant were discovered. 



It is time, and high time, that sparrow-hawks were 

 placed under the protecting wing of the law. Genera- 



tions of gamekeepers have persecuted them 

 The relentlessly : it says much for their courage, 

 Sparrow- stren g tn > an d craftiness that any should 

 Hawk remain to offer a target for the keeper's gun. 



But they grow scarce ; they are seen far less 

 commonly than kestrels, whose usefulness and inno- 

 cence of gamecide is beginning to be a little under- 

 stood. If sportsmen would consider the evidence 

 for and against sparrow-hawks as despoilers of game 

 if they would rely no longer on prejudice and crass 

 ignorance we feel sure they would take steps to 

 stay the wanton slaughter by their gamekeepers 

 of these handsome, useful birds. Keepers ought 

 to be forbidden to destroy any sparrow-hawks, ex- 

 cept those which clearly prove themselves guilty of 

 killing game as a habit. How thoughtless, ruthless, 

 and mistaken is the keeper's zeal in killing them, we 

 could show by a hundred instances. To take one : 



