BBEEDING HABITS OF THE SPABBOW-HAWK. 45 



or may not, be competent for their work, and in electing to 

 scrupulously abide by the evidence of my own researches. 



The eggs are laid on alternate days, six being the largest 

 clutch I have taken, though I have secured as many as fifteen 

 and sixteen from single nests, the first egg of the latter number 

 having been laid on May 1, and the last on May 31, so that by 

 judicious manipulation of the nest and its contents, I had 

 seduced the bird into laying an egg on every other day 

 throughout that traditionally merry month. It will generally 

 be found that one egg in a clutch differs in a remarkable 

 degree in markings from the remainder ; sometimes it is alto- 

 gether devoid of colouring matter, while at others a consider- 

 able portion of its bluish- white ground is blushed over with 

 brown of a much paler shade than that with which the rest of 

 the eggs in the clutch are usually so handsomely clouded and 

 blotched. So far as I have been enabled to test the point, the 

 eggs are seldom hatched before the expiration of five weeks. 



One word more : the ultra-extended platform built by the 

 Sparrow-hawks themselves and superadded to the relics of 

 the nest of some other species, is assuredly a beautiful expres- 

 sion of the instinct when considered in relation to its use 

 at a subsequent stage. Nevertheless, the fact that this roomy 

 plateau not only does duty as a repository for freshly killed 

 prey, but as a family banqueting table, whither the young 

 periodically return for many days after they are fledged and 

 gone out into the world, appears to be too notorious a feature 

 in the economy of the species to be even cursorily discussed, 

 so far as I am aware, by any writer, whether field- or closet- 

 naturalist, on British birds, Knox only excepted ! 



In conclusion, though far from wishing to speak dispara- 

 gingly of reviewers, the fact that in so many instances their 

 notices labour under the disadvantage of being anonymous, de- 

 tracts, in my opinion, from the store we might otherwise set 

 by them ; nor is this detraction modified when we find an 

 undoubted truth opposed by a flat and unverified contradiction 

 to which we can assign no paternity. I think Mr. Hudson 

 is greatly to be commended for having ignored ancient lore 

 and struck out a line of his own ; and I can only hope that 

 his repudiation of a time-honoured and much-copied fallacy 



