OBSERVATIONS AND QUERIES. 141 



county, I was well acquainted with the nests of Sparrow-Hawks built in the 

 demesnes of Coohnan and Ballybricken, and invariably found that they built 

 their own nests, generally on the lateral branches close to the bole of a fir-tree 

 of some kind, though in several instances the nest might be some distance 

 from the main stem, and at no great height ; perhaps ten to twenty feet 

 from the ground would be about the average. The nest was constructed of 

 small twigs, principally larch, with a well-formed cup-shaped cavity about 

 three inches deep, in which the eggs were laid ; then, duriDg the hatching 

 and the rearing of the young, this cavity became flattened, and by the time 

 the young were fledged the nest had all the appearance of an old and 

 deserted nest of the Owl — a mere dilapidated, flimsy platform. Here, at 

 Moyview, Co. Sligo, I have had a pair or two of Sparrow- Hawks building 

 every year since 1853, and in every instance I have seen the birds build a 

 new nest every year, and never on the old nest of other birds, though we 

 have plenty of Magpies and Rooks, in the old nests of which the Long-eared 

 Owls lay their eggs every season, and in early spring the melancholy, long- 

 drawn moan of the male Long-eared Owl can be heard all about the place. — 

 Robert Warren (Moyview, Ballina). 



As a final contribution to a subject which has given rise to a certain 

 amount of controversy and misunderstanding, I must say that I entirely 

 repudiate the inference which Mr. F. B. Whitlock has ostensibly drawn from 

 my original paper, to wit, that Sparrow- Hawks appropriate Magpies' nests of 

 the year. Such is altogether foreign to my experience, and diametrically 

 opposed to my belief. Kestrels, breeding late from some cause or another, 

 occasionally resort to newly-built Magpies' nests after they have served their 

 lawful owners' purpose ; and I have, moreover, been an interested spectator 

 of right royal battles betwixt Magpies and Kestrels for the possession of 

 brand-new nests, completed and just ready for eggs, belonging, of course, 

 to the former species — invariably, I may add, terminating in favour of the 

 Kestrels. But it never for a moment entered my head that anyone could 

 interpret any single sentence of mine as meaning that Sparrow-Hawks either 

 deposit their eggs actually in Magpies' nests of the year, or superimpose 

 nests of their own on the bulky and imposing structures appropriated in 

 all their quasi-pristine newness. If one or other of these eventualities be 

 not contemplated by Mr. Whitlock, I am wholly at a loss to know what 

 construction he wishes placed on his pointed^ allusion to the two nests (he 

 knew of) belonging to Magpies, and built during the spring of the present 

 year, neither of which had proved attractive to a pair of Sparrow- Hawks 

 subsequently breeding in the same wood. I might almost say that the very 

 essence of my original contention was to the effect that Sparrow-Hawks 

 only have recourse to the bare relics of ancient nests as foundations for 

 their own. and I was quite under the impression that I had emphasised 



