Been, greater proportion of its diet, and as chickens, 
partridges, and young pheasants are destroyed 
by it in con- 
siderable 
numbers, 
both the 
farmer and 
the game- 
keeper have 
ample justi- 
fication for 
the warfare 
which they 
wage against 
t. 
The color- 
ation of the 
Sparrow Hawk is so totally different from that of the 
kestrel, that only by a very ignorant observer can the one 
bird be mistaken for the other. There is a certain similarity 
in appearance, however, between the cuckoo and _ the 
Tr 
Sparrow Hawk, and small birds frequently mistake the one 
for the other, ‘ mobbing” a cuckoo as if it were a bird 
of prey. 
Here, probably, we have the explanation of the 
‘ 
‘early 
cuckoos ” which are sometimes recorded as having been 
6 
