52 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



my position on the briared bank running down one side of the 

 plantation, at a spot commanding a close view of the tree and 

 nest last spoken of. 



From about 4 I once or twice heard the cry of the hawks, or 

 one of them, and at 4.30 or thereabouts there was a violent 

 rushing sound overhead, and a bird settled in one of the trees 

 just in front of me at the corner of the plantation. I afterwards 

 heard the cry more than once, but could never see the bird, 

 till, some ten minutes afterwards, there was a gliding descent, 

 past these trees into one of the bushes of a little oak shrubbery 

 adjoining the plantation, and close to the tree in which the Jay's 

 nest was situated. It was the female hawk. I saw her as she 

 perched, and in another moment she flew into the lower foliage 

 of the tree itself, gave a fierce, suspicious glance about her, then 

 dropped upon the nest, and, gripping fiercely with both feet into 

 its rim, flew off with something she had seized into the top of 

 one of the beeches where she had sat yesterday. Here she was 

 a good deal shrouded amidst the foliage, but I got the glasses on 

 her nevertheless, and had a fairly good view of her as she sat 

 voraciously tearing at and swallowing the booty which she had 

 evidently carried away from where I had seen it yesterday, and 

 where it must have lain overnight, since it was dark when I 

 entered the plantation. Having finished her meal, the hawk 

 flew in the direction of her own nest. I waited till nearly 7, and 

 then going to the place from which I ordinarily watch, saw her 

 on it, and so left her. 



In the evening, about 7, I came down again, wishing to see 

 if there would be anything fresh in the larder, but a peasant 

 woman who was collecting leaves and sticks where it was pre- 

 vented me from doing so, not wishing to be seen, on account of 

 rustic curiosity — a somewhat embarrassing element in field 

 natural history here. 



It would be a point of interest to know whether it was the 

 male or female hawk that deposited the dead Kedstart in this 

 Jay's nest, but this I could not be sure of at the time. 



June 16th. — Was in the plantation about 3.15 a.m. I first 

 went to the Jay's nest to see if anything fresh had been placed 

 there, but it was empty, and this was the case on every subse- 

 quent occasion that I looked at it, though I did so almost 



