42 THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 



one of the strong points in which these short -winged species 

 differ from the long- winged Falcons." 



With regard to the breeding habits of the Gos-hawk, I can 

 offer no first-hand observations ; but though it is the fashion 

 to treat of this species as building its own nest,* it appears to 

 me not a little significant that Lt.-Col. Irby, in " The Or- 

 nithology of the Straits of Gibraltar," when speaking of the 

 only nest he ever met with, remarks that it did not appear 

 to have been built by the Gos-hawks, but was seemingly the 

 ancient nest of some other species. 



With regard to the nesting economy of the Sparrow-hawk, 

 however, I feel no diffidence in throwing down the gauntlet to 

 the teaching of books and reviews alike, and unreservedly 

 assert that Mr. Hudson only gave expression to an apparently 

 little-known fact when he wrote as he did in connection with 

 the breeding habits of this short-winged Hawk. Personally, I 

 am emboldened to discourse on the point at issue with even 

 less restriction, and I distinctly say that in my life-long ex- 

 perience it has been the invariable custom of the species to 

 appropriate the nests of other birds. 



Reference to almost any work on British Birds will prove 

 that the author pledges himself to the statement that the 

 Sparrow-hawk rarely appropriates the nest of some other 

 species, but generally builds one for itself; indeed, not a few 

 writers take their stand upon an unconditional assertion, 

 alleging that the species never appropriates but always erects a 

 nest for itself. Now I do not propose to anticipate here what 

 I have already written on this vexed question in my " Original 

 Sketches of British Birds," the MS. of which is in the pub- 

 lisher's hands ; nor could space be found for a series of 

 extracts from the numerous ornithological publications which 

 adorn my bookshelves ; I will rather content myself with a 

 brief quotation from the late Mr. H. Seebohm's " British 

 Birds," a deservedly extolled work, and of comparatively recent 

 origin, wherein, at page 138, he writes : — " Notwithstanding 



* Most authorities appear to state that it frequently does so. In the case of 

 the closely-allied American species QAstur atricapillus) it, so far as we know, 

 always builds its own nest without, moreover, founding it upon the remains 

 of a uest of some other bird. — [Ed.] 



