8 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



their big round heads and their fluffy white 

 down. 



As their feathers grew they became more active ; 

 they were less and less inclined to sit in a close 

 bunch ; they would draw as far apart as they 

 were able and sit on the extreme edge of the 

 nest, and from that high perch they would stare 

 curiously down at me when I looked up at them. 

 The habits of the parent birds were unlike those 

 of sparrow - hawks breeding in woods and wild 

 places where people are rarely seen. Instead of 

 displaying intense anxiety and screaming at the 

 sight of a human form, causing the young birds to 

 squat low down in the nest, they would slink off 

 in silence and vanish from the scene. This ex- 

 treme secretiveness was, in the circumstances, 

 their safest policy, to express it in that way, but, 

 of course, it had one drawback — it left the young 

 iminstructed as to the dangerous character of 

 man. That lesson would have to come later, 

 when they were off the nest. 



As the hawks grew, the supply of food in- 

 creased, and the birds supplied were so carefully 

 plucked, not a feather being left, also the head 

 removed, that in some instances it was actually 

 difficult to identify the species ; but I think that 

 most of the birds brought to the nest were star- 

 lings. The young hawks had now to feed them- 

 selves on what was on the table, and when one 

 felt peckish he would take up a bird and carry 

 it to the edge of the big nest so as to be out of 



