40 
AMERICAN SPARROW HAWK. 
up found the small field sparrow (fig. 2,) quivering in his grasp. 
Both our aims had been taken in the same instant, and, unfor- 
tunately for him, both were fatal. It is particularly fond of 
watching along hedge rows, and in orchards, where those small 
birds, represented 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 
any thing that it haS not itself killed, and even that, if not (as 
epicures would term it) in good eating order f is sometimes re- 
jected. 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 ex- 
actly 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. 
The female of this species, which is here faithfully represent- 
ed from a very beautiful living specimen, furnished by a parti- 
cular friend, is eleven inches long, and twenty-three from tip 
