83 
flit about our hedges, and in winter the 
blackbird particularly becomes its easy prey. 
Such is the violence with which it some- 
times directs its horizontal flight (says Shaw) 
either in avoiding some more powerful enemy 
of its own tribe, or in the ardent pursuit of 
distant game, that it has been known to 
break through a pane of glass, and fall 
stunned into the middle of a room in which 
were two opposite windows. It was sup- 
posed, that some pigeons on the opposite 
side might have occasioned the hawk's mis- 
take. 
A circumstance nearly similar occurred 
very recently at a gentleman's seat in a 
village near this city (Norwich.) 
It becomes very audacious when impelled 
by hunger, pouncing at the birds used as 
decoys by the bird-catchers, and has been 
known to strike at a blackbird confined in 
a cage, and suspended against the front 
of a house in one of the most public streets 
in London. 
Graves also mentions a circumstance of 
which he was an eye-witness : " On the 1st 
of February, 1812, while passing along Pic- 
% 2 
