64 falconidjE. 



of a tree, and making another stoop. The rapidity of their move- 

 ments, and the sudden turns which they make to avoid coming 

 in contact with the branches, is truly astonishing. Although he 

 glides like an arrow through the wood, the sparrow-hawk falls 

 more frequently before cock-shooting parties than other birds of 

 prey. True, his quick perceptions give him full notice of the 

 sportsman's advance with his noisy beaters ; yet all the ' ' feathered 

 songsters of the grove" being just then in confusion, he hovers 

 about to take advantage of their unguarded movements, until some 

 sportsman brings him to the ground. 



" Very often, of a summer evening, the shrill whistle of some 

 little bird directs attention to the sparrow-hawk as he returns 

 home, flying high in air, with a bird in his talons. I am inclined 

 to think they carry their prey considerable distances, having often 

 watched them flying off with it, at a good height, and in a straight 

 line, until they left my sight in the direction of some woods. 

 Nor does the male bird always make his repast in peace, for in 

 July last, while riding along a road through a wood, two sparrow- 

 hawks crossed me about twenty times. One had some small 

 bird in his talons ; the other hawk (a female, perhaps his own 

 partner), followed him everywhere, while he twisted and turned 

 in all directions, throwing her out at the turns. I watched them 

 for a quarter of an hour, and then rode on. 



" A sparrow-hawk robbed me of a little snow-white pea-fowl, a 

 few days old, — the only white one in a brood of five, — singling it 

 out from the others while they were all being fed by a lady at her 

 hall-door steps." 



As a gamekeeper at Ormeau, the seat of the Marquis of 

 Donegal, near Belfast, was one day feeding young pheasants, a 

 sparrow-hawk swept close past his feet, and bore off one of the 

 innocents. On attempting, the next day, to repeat the same feat 

 of dexterity, its life fell a sacrifice; the keeper, in expectation of 

 another visit, having come armed with his gun to the feeding- 

 ground. 



At the end of October, 1840, as two shooters, in a boat in 

 Belfast bay, had just fired at and killed a few dunlins (Tringa va- 



