DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE SPARROW-HAWK. 53 



as often as I came. It was not, therefore, a regular store-place, 

 though it had been used once for this purpose. Whether it had 

 also been previously, I cannot of course tell, but I conjecture so, 

 since the one time that I saw the hawk visit it, it flew there, 

 directly, as to a known resort. In noting that the larder was 

 empty, however, I startled a bird which I think was one of the 

 hawks — therefore the male, for the female would certainly have 

 been on the nest — out of the top of the same tree, in which, 

 apparently, it had been roosting for the night. About 4.10 

 I heard the cry, which was shortly repeated, this time nearer the 

 nest than before. It is just about this time that the sitting bird 

 goes off the nest, and I make no doubt that she had done 

 so now, and gone on to it again, for always, in returning to it, 

 the cry is uttered. All was then quiet, as far as the hawks 

 were concerned, till about 6.30 a.m., when I heard a very curious 

 note, followed almost immediately by the bird's usual cry. This 

 note I cannot transcribe, though writing soon after hearing it. 

 It had a guttural intonation, and there was a sort of low rattle 

 or tremolo in it. I believe it to have been uttered by one of the 

 hawks, and that the other answered it, but I could not catch 

 sight of either of the birds, and there was no farther conversation 

 between them. In the afternoon I returned, but found a peasant 

 woman, with a boy, in the plantation, and my next observation 

 was the boy climbing the tree to get at the nest I have been 

 watching. I brought him down, through the woman, by giving 

 her a franc, to have it let alone, telling her that I was a 

 naturalist who came to watch the bird's habits, &c., that I wrote 

 books about birds, and so forth, all which she seemed to under- 

 stand very readily, and the nest was faithfully let alone as long 

 as I stayed in St. Servan. The boy told me that there were 

 four eggs in the nest, and that they ought now to be hatched, as 

 it was a month since he had climbed up to look at them, which 

 was corroborated by the woman. Probably there was a mental 

 reservation, viz. that the eggs had on that occasion been taken, 

 for that this was the case and that the birds had laid again 

 seems best to accord with the date at which — as far as I could 

 ascertain — the young were hatched out. This incident so upset 

 me that I awoke next morning with a headache, and did not visit 

 the plantation all day. 



