BREEDING HABITS OF THE SPARROW-HAWK. 65 



nake Forest in 1883, in a tree in which there was, to my certain 

 knowledge, no nest whatever till the Sparrow-hawks went 

 there and built one. In both the other cases there was a new 

 and complete nest, but the remains of an old one — in each 

 case, I believe, that of a Magpie — was used as a foundation. 

 I have seen other nests up to which it was impossible to climb, 

 and of which it is impossible to speak with certainty. But 

 the point raised appears to me to be one upon which there 

 should not be much doubt, for there must be many competent 

 field-naturalists, let alone savants, who can tell us about 

 the nests of the Sparrow-hawk, though I sincerely trust there 

 are very few who can boast of having taken " hundreds of 

 their eggs." Habits vary, no doubt, according to the nature 

 of different localities, but the inference suggested by Mr. 

 Davenport's paper is that the Sparrow-hawk invariably appro- 

 priates the nest of another species, and I fancy that few 

 naturalists will go so far as to support this view. Mr. Kear- 

 ton's "British Birds' Nests" is obviously the work of a 

 student of birds in their natural haunts. Yet I see that Mr. 

 Kearton's experience is diametrically opposite to that of Mr. 

 Davenport. He says he has taken " some eight or ten nests 

 personally " (p. 270), and the nests were made by the birds 

 themselves "in every single instance." 



My friend, Mr. J. J. Baldwin Young, an able and ex- 

 perienced oologist, commenting on Mr. Davenport's paper, 

 writes to me as follows : — " Two nests I examined near Stony- 

 hurst were certainly built by the Sparrow-hawks themselves. 

 Another I knew of in Lincolnshire was almost entirely, if not 

 quite, built by the Hawks. The fact that there are sometimes 

 remains of an old nest underneath is really a detail, it is 

 certainly not the rule." 



Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park. 



Mr. C. E. Wright, of Kettering, writes that the Chiff-chaff arrived on 

 March 14th, and that the Fieldfare was still there in large numbers on 

 April 21st. 



