SPARROW HAWK. 



487 



has been deserted by a crow. It lays four or five eggs of a dirty white, 

 sometimes of a bluish tinge, blotched at the large, and sometimes, 

 though rarely, at the smaller end with rust-colour. 



The female Sparrow Hawk is a very bold bird ; and has been trained 

 for hawking with success, though its flight is not so rapid as the longer 

 winged hawks. It is a great destroyer of game and young poultry : 

 we have frequently known them carry away half a brood of chickens 

 before the thief was discovered. They fly low, skim over a poultry 

 yard, snatch up a chick, and are out of sight in an instant. It is observ- 

 able that the most generous hawks, (as they were formerly termed,) that 

 is, the most tractable, have long and pointed wings, the second feather 

 being the longest. To this division the falcons, properly so called, 

 belong ; the hobby, merlin, and kestrel, are also of this kind. 



This species, as well as the goshawk and all the buzzards, are short 

 winged. These have the third and fourth feather in the wing nearly 

 of the same length, and longer than the second ; so that the wings 

 when spread have a more rounded appearance at the end. 



The more generous hawks, we have frequently observed, kill their 

 prey as soon as caught, by eating the head first ; whereas the buzzards, 

 in particular, begin eating their prey indiscriminately. We have 

 several times taken partridges and other birds from them, which had 

 one side of the breast or a thigh devoured, and the bird still alive. 



*Although I have known this bird frequently take possession of the 

 abandoned nest of a crow or a magpie, without making any additional 

 repairs, I have also known it to breed in the holes of precipitous rocks, 

 as at Howford, near Mauchline, in Ayrshire, and Cartlan Crags, near 

 Lanark. " About the tenth of July," says White, " a pair of Sparrow 

 Hawks bred in an old crow's nest on a low beech, in Selborne Hanger ; 

 and as their brood, which was numerous, began to grow up, became so 

 daring and ravenous, that they were a terror to all the dames in the 

 village, who had chickens or ducklings under their care. A boy climbed 

 the tree, and found the young so fledged, that they all escaped from 

 him ; but he discovered that a good house had been kept : the larder 

 was well stored with provisions, for he brought down a young black- 

 bird, jay, and house martin, all clean picked, and some half devoured. 

 The old birds had been observed to make sad havoc for some days 

 among the new-flown swallows and martins, which, being but lately out 

 of their nests, had not acquired those powers and command of wing 

 that enable them, when more mature, to set enemies at defiance." 1 * 



1 Nat. Hist, of Selborne, i. 188, 8vo; and p. 279, foolscap 8vo. 



