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perhaps the noise of a party of Sparrows squabbling amongst themselves attracts his attention. 

 Swift as thought he glides along the walk ; if the bushes are too thick for a dash, he flies 

 rapidly round them ; then woe to the wretched creature that first meets the glance of his keen 

 eye. At another time he has found a flock of Sparrows in the close-pruned hedge that surrounds 

 the stack-yard. He first beats one side, then the other, the birds always betaking themselves to 

 the opposite side; and thus he persecutes them till one in its fright exposes itself. A shriek 

 follows, and all is over. I only once observed this Hawk rush from a great height in the air 

 upon a flock thus circumstanced. Its usual manner of approaching its prey is by gliding close 

 over the ground. 



" ' It follows an ingenious method of procuring a choice supply of food from August to 

 November, when the leaves are on the trees that surround our dwelling. Not far from the 

 garden-hedge is a row of tall willows. Within the garden, and not fourteen yards from them, 

 stands a beautiful white birch, which shoots up to the height of about twenty-four feet. Its 

 stem is entwined with an aged honeysuckle, in which for the last three years ten pairs of 

 Sparrows have built their nests, which in some places embrace the entire circumference of 

 the stem, while in others they are piled irregularly above one another. Softly and warily does 

 the Sparrow-Hawk glide into one of the topmost boughs of the willows]; and keen are the 

 glances of his bright eye, which grows brighter when he sees the Sparrows bickering in the 

 honeysuckle. Balancing himself on his perch, with half-opened wings, and levelling his neck 

 for flight, down he rushes ; the yelloping instantly ceases ; then what a rustling of the leaves of 

 the neighbouring bushes, followed by a death-yell ! and now you see the bold robber bearing 

 away his bloody victim to some quiet corner to devour it at leisure. I have seen Pipits, Larks, 

 Wagtails, and Swallows evade the swoop of this fell destroyer by dexterously darting to one 

 side, rising above the pursuer, again darting aside, and rising as he descends, and so on, gradually 

 diminishing the distance from the earth, until the persecuted bird finds a shelter, or the tyrant 

 gives up the pursuit in disgust. What a treat it is to behold the elegant evolutions performed 

 by both parties! 



" 'This Hawk preys chiefly on small birds, Partridges, leverets, and young rabbits. Should 

 the gamekeeper disturb it when feasting, he sets a trap near the remains, and is often successful 

 in capturing it. It is sometimes caught in traps baited with dead rabbits. It is very fond of 

 washing. Here it prefers the branches of the old oak in the wood for building its shallow nest 

 of slender twigs, in which it deposits from three to five eggs. The young I have seen fledged so 

 late as the 30th of July ; but the usual time is about the end of June. 



" ' One evening in June 1838, on my way home from fishing, I walked through a wood near 

 Euchlaw Mill. Observing a number of rabbits gambolling in a green glade, I stood to see their 

 sports, when in a short time a Sparrow-Hawk swept down from a neighbouring ash, and fixed his 

 claws into an old one, which rushed shrieking to the brink of a precipice overhanging Whit- 

 tingham Water. Running forward, I arrived in time to see both saved from certain death, by 

 being caught by a briar bush growing on a little natural platform. Still the Hawk kept his 

 hold till I shouted, on which he flew off.' 



" ' In one of the plantations on Boghead,' Mr. Weir writes, ' for several years past a pair of 

 Sparrow- Hawks have reared their young, in the deserted nest of either the Carrion-Crow or 



