SPARROW HAWK. 
487 
has been deserted by a crow. It lays four or live eggs of a dirty white, 
sometimes of a bluish ting-e, 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.”** 
^ Nat. Hist, of Selborne, i. 188, 8vo; and p. 279, foolscap 8vo. 
