NOTES AND QUERIES. 427 



shrouded in obscurity. I have found and critically examined many scores 

 of Sparrow-Hawks' nests, and have taken hundreds of their eggs, and in 

 the whole of my experience I cannot recall to mind a single case in which 

 the parent birds had not resorted to the old and discarded nests of some 

 other species. These same nests, erstwhile the possessions of Ring-Doves, 

 Carrion-Crows, and Magpies, generally presented a very ragged appearance 

 previously to adaptation, being tattered and torn by the storms and gales of 

 winter. " Long ere the leaf is out — sometimes, indeed, as early as the end 

 of March — mental selection is unquestionably made of the nest that is 

 eventually to be used as a breeding-site." At dawn, and again at the 

 approach of dusk, the birds are frequently to be found iu its vicinity, either 

 soaring high in the air, and occasionally uttering sharp screams as they 

 wheel to and fro, or else perched in the trees beneath. " With the advance 

 of spring they will be found busy at the nest itself, apparently cleaning and 

 patching it up, while in course of time there is superimposed a shallow and 

 very extended structure of twigs and sticks, in which receptacle the eggs 

 are laid." The substructure or basis is entirely the handiwork of some 

 other species, the superstructure that of the Sparrow-Hawks themselves. 

 The birds gather the supplementary materials chiefly from beneath the 

 tree, flying up and down in turn, as I have repeatedly proved by watching 

 them from an ambush. 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 haviug been 

 laid on May 1st, and the last on May 31st; so that, by judicious manipu- 

 lation of the nest and its contents, I had induced 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 appreciably in the mark- 

 ings from the remainder ; sometimes it is altogether devoid of colouring 

 matter, while at others a considerable 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. Sparrow-Hawks begin to sit about May 10th, in Leicestershire, 

 or about six weeks after the first overtures have been made to the nest that 

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

 eggs — which are exceedingly thick-shelled — are seldom hatched before the 

 expiration of five weeks. 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 expression 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, 



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