124 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 
Family—FALCONIDA:. 
AmeERIcAN Gos-Hawk. 
Astur atricapillus, WILSON. 
HREE examples of the American Gos-Hawk, that only differs from the bird 
T just described in having a black head, and narrower and more numerous 
transverse markings on the breast, have been obtained in the British Isles, one in 
Scotland, and two in Ireland. One in Perthshire, in 1869; one in Tipperary, in 
1870, and one, in the same year, at Parsonstown, King’s County. 
Family—FALCONIDA:. 
SPARROW-Hawk. 
Accipiter nisus, LINN. 
HE well-known Sparrow-Hawk is a Gos-Hawk in miniature, possessing all 
the spirit and ferocity of its larger representative, and like it is a bird of 
the woodlands. Although keepers regard it, and with justice, as one of their 
most dangerous enemies, and destroy it and its nest whenever and wherever found, 
still in many parts of the kingdom it is a common species, and it would seem as 
if it was almost impossible to extirpate it. Its method of hunting for its prey 
must be familiar to all dwellers in the country, who have seen it as with rapid 
flight it skimmed along some hedgerow, suddenly darting out its feet to capture 
