264 AMERICAN SPARROW-HA WK. 



gun to my eye, when he swept down, with the rapidity of an 

 arrow, into a thicket of briers about thirty yards off, where 

 I shot him dead, and, on coming up, found the small field 

 sparrow (fig. 2) quivering in his grasp. Both our aims had 

 been taken in the same instant, and, unfortunately for him, 

 both were fatal. It is particularly fond of watching along 

 hedgerows and in orchards, where those small birds repre- 

 sented in the same plate usually resort. When grasshoppers 

 are plenty, they form a considerable part of its food. 



Though small snakes, mice, lizards, &c, be favourite morsels 

 with this active bird, yet we are not to suppose it altogether 

 destitute of delicacy in feeding. It will seldom or never eat 

 of anything that it has not itself killed, and even that, if not 

 (as epicures would term it) in good eating order, is sometimes 

 rejected. A very respectable friend, through the medium of 

 Mr Bartram, informs me that one morning he observed one 

 of these hawks dart down on the ground and seize a mouse, 

 which he carried to a fence post, where, after examining it 

 for some time, he left it, and, a little while after, pounced upon 

 another mouse, which he instantly carried off to his nest, in 

 the hollow of a tree hard by. The gentleman, anxious to 

 know why the hawk had rejected the first mouse, went up to 

 it, and found it to be almost covered with lice, and greatly 

 emaciated ! Here was not only delicacy of taste, but sound 

 and prudent reasoning : — If I carry this to my nest, thought 

 he, it will fill it with vermin, and hardly be worth eating. 



The blue jays have a particular antipathy to this bird, and 

 frequently insult it by following and imitating its notes so 

 exactly, as to deceive even those well acquainted with both. 

 In return for all this abuse, the hawk contents himself with 

 now and then feasting on the plumpest of his persecutors, 

 who are, therefore, in perpetual dread of him ; and yet, through 

 some strange infatuation, or from fear that, if they lose sight 

 of him, he may attack them unawares, the sparrow-hawk no 

 sooner appears than the alarm is given, and the whole posse 

 of jays follow. 



