DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE SPARROW-HAWK. 105 



suspicion that the bird moved of its own motion, after being 

 thus brought in. The mind strives unconsciously to minimise 

 and render inconsiderable the suffering that exists in Nature ; 

 but this is a mere weak — nay, a cowardly — concession to benevo- 

 lent feelings. The feeding takes just five minutes, and the hawk 

 almost immediately upon its close passes to the other side of 

 the nest, and after standing there for a minute or two, covers 

 the nest. 



I now go to one corner of the plantation near to where the 

 rendezvous between the male and female hawk usually takes 

 place, in hopes of seeing the actual delivery of the booty on the 

 next occasion, but the concealing properties of the foliage (more 

 apparent to the field than to the theoretical naturalist) make 

 this, I fear, a rather forlorn hope. I am, however, luckier than 

 I expected, for just as I finish the above sentence (about 5.55), 

 there is the cry of the male just above me. It is repeated, and 

 the bird then flies amongst the beeches and settles in my sight. 

 Almost as he does so the female comes flying up to him, and 

 though the movements are so light and rapid that I cannot 

 actually see the booty passed to and received by her, yet it evi- 

 dently is so, for after settling for a moment quite near the male, 

 with that curious plaintive cry which I have noted before, she 

 flies to another branch, in splendid view, and I see that she has 

 something in one of her claws only. It is not a whole bird, but 

 no more than the fragment of one ; it looks like the breastbone 

 torn off from the rest, and, through the glasses, I see her now, 

 for the first time, denude this of the feathers still clothing it, 

 for it has certainly, I think, been partially plumed already. 

 Then she flies with this to another tree, where I can still see 

 her continuing the process, but, the next moment, goes straight 

 to the nest with it — for though I cannot actually see the nest 

 from here, I can locate it exactly. The male, therefore, not only 

 brings in and delivers the quarry, but he delivers it, sometimes 

 at any rate, both plucked (more or less) and in fragments, and 

 this accords with the appearance of the object which I saw him 

 carrying some time ago in the free air, outside the plantation, 

 as noted. That, too, in its disc-like appearance, was suggestive 

 either of the naked back or breast of some small bird torn both 

 from the head and the rest of the body. 



