HAWKING-BIRDS. 
the last. Occasionally, when standing still amongst the trees, 
or even when passing the corner of the house, I have been 
startled by a sparrow-hawk gliding rapidly past me. Once 
one came so close to me that his wing actually brushed my 
arm, the hawk being in pursuit of an unfortunate blackbird. 
On another occasion a sparrow-hawk pursued a pigeon 
through the drawing-room window, and out at the other end 
of the house through another window, and never slackened his 
pursuit, notwithstanding the clatter of the broken glass of the 
two windows they passed through. But the most extraordinary 
instance of impudence in this bird that I ever met with was 
one day finding a sparrow-hawk deliberately standing on a 
very large pouter pigeon on the drawing-room floor, and 
plucking it, having entered in pursuit of the unfortunate 
bird through an open window, and killed him in the room.” 
The female sparrow-hawk is bigger than the male, by at 
least a fifth, and considerably more than a fifth heavier. 
The upper parts of the male are bluish ash-colour ; its throat 
and chest reddish-brown. The hen is of an altogether browner 
complexion than the male, with the throat and under parts 
white. Its nest is built in low trees and shrubs, and it occa- 
sionally happens that the proud hawk, thinking the process of 
building menial and degrading, will take the house as well as 
the life of one of the larger birds on which he preys, and 
settle down with his family. Of the courage with which he 
will defend his nest, ample evidence exists. Says Thompson, 
“ An ornithological friend of mine, on climbing a tree to one 
of their nests, was, when within a few yards of it, attacked by 
the female bird, and his cap, at one stroke, sent to the ground. 
He speedily followed it, lest the next stroke should be on his 
bare head ; but, replacing the cap more firmly on, he gallantly 
remounted to the nest, which he had been almost daily in the 
habit of visiting, and was gratified with the sight of four young 
birds that day hatched.” The same authority relates that a 
friend of his has frequently taken the nest of the sparrow- 
hawk from the tree when the young were nearly fledged, 
and placed it on the ground under a basket, in the bottom of 
which a hole was cut to admit the old birds when they came 
to feed them. The basket was quite exposed to view, and rat- 
traps were placed about, in which, though often screened but 
by a single leaf of the sycamore, the old birds were captured ; 
in snares thus set around the basket they were often caught. 
Once, when the female was taken, the male fed the young 
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