58 BIRDS OF PREY 



The jaunty little Sparrow Hawk^ is the smallest Amer- 

 ican hawk, and also the most beautiful. Its form is elegant, 

 and its colors are varied and pleasing. As if desirous of ad- 

 miration, it tolerates man at shorter range than any other 

 hawk I know. Its cap is dull blue, its throat white with 

 black side-patches, and its upper neck and back are bright 

 rusty-brown. Its breast is salmon color, sparingly spotted, 

 its knickerbockers are white, and its tarsi and feet are bright 

 yellow. It inhabits the whole United States, and on north- 

 ward to Great Slave Lake, but I think it is most plentiful on 

 the prairie farms of the middle West. 



As a destroyer of grasshoppers, beetles, crickets, cater- 

 pillars and other insect enemies, this little Hawk deserves to 

 rank with the birds most beneficial to man. For so small a 

 bird, the number of grasshoppers it consumes in a year is 

 enormous. It never molests poultry, and when insects are 

 obtainable never kills a song bird, but it does destroy great 

 numbers of mice. It is reported that, of 320 stomachs exam- 

 ined, 215 contained insects; 29, spiders; 89, mice; 12, other 

 mammals; 53, small birds; 1, a game bird; and 29 were 

 empty. Many stomachs contained from 10 to 35 grasshoppers • 

 each, and of other insects from 25 to 40 in one bird was of 

 common occurrence. 



It must be noted at this point that when the Sparrow 

 Hawk is rearing its young, it does sometimes catch young 

 chickens; but the extreme infrequency of this may be judged 

 from the fact that in the entire series of 320 specimens ex- 

 amined at Washington, taken at all seasons from January to 



' Fal'co spar-ve'ri-us. Length, 9 to 10 inches. 



