142 
TAMED HAWKS. 
Pigeons, and associated with them. At first the Pigeons 
were rather shy of meeting their natural enemy on such an 
occasion, hut they soon became familiarized, and approached 
without fear. It was curious to observe the playfulness of 
the Hawk, and his perfect good-humour during feeding-time ; 
for he received his portion without any of that ferocity with 
which birds of prey usually take their food, and merely 
uttered a cry of lamentation when disappointed of his morsel. 
When the feast was over, he would attend the Pigeons in 
their flight round and round the house and gardens, and 
perch with them on the chimney-top or roof of the house, and 
this voyage he never failed to take early every morning, when 
the Pigeons took their exercise. At night he retired and 
roosted with them in the dovecot ; and though for some days 
after his first appearance, he had it all to himself, the Pigeons 
not liking such an intruder, they shortly became good friends, 
and he was never known even to touch a young one, unfledged, 
helpless, and tempting as they must have been. He seemed 
quite unhappy at any separation from them, and when pur- 
posely confined in another abode, he constantly uttered most 
melancholy cries, which were changed to tones of joy and 
satisfaction on the appearance of any person with whom he 
was familiar. The narrator of the above concludes his ac- 
count by adding, that he was as playful as a kitten and as 
loving as a dove. In Egypt and Turkey too, a particular 
species is often domesticated, and may he seen in the farm- 
yards and gardens, like the Sparrow-hawk just mentioned, in 
company with Pigeons, without showing any inclination to 
injure them ; and in the course of 1833, a Hawk, which we 
believe to he of a similar species to that domesticated in 
Turkey, namely, the common Buzzard, not only sat upon the 
eggs of a common barn-door fowl, hut instead of devouring 
them when hatched, according to its natural habit, actually 
paid them considerable attention, as long as they were allowed 
to remain in the place where they were hatched, though when 
removed to another more spacious enclosed situation, with the 
brood, notwithstanding she showed no inclination to kill them, 
