BY Tin? WAYSIDE. .... 
o o 
SCHOOL BRANCH DEPARTMENT. 
Every Wisconsin School Branch is required to subscribe for at least one copy of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters for til's department should be written on only 
one side of the page, should give the name, age and ad¬ 
dress of the writer, and should be mailed by the first of 
the mouth, Illinois Children sending to Mrs. \\m. M. 
Scudder, 1C5 Buena Ave., Chicago, III., and Wisconsin 
children to Mrs. Beckham, 646 Marshall St., Milwaukee, 
. Wis. An honor badge will be awarded for each state 
every month, preference beiDg-given to letters about the 
bird for the month (which is always on this page), and 
to original observations. Any child who wins the honor 
badge twice will receive a bird book as a prize. 
The wien button, which is the badge of the Audubon 
Society, costs one cent, and may be bought from Mrs. 
Scudder or Mrs. Peckham. 
Any Wisconsin School Branch may, without expense, 
have the use of the Gordon and Merrill Libraries of bird 
books, by applyingto Miss Bossert, Librarian,719 Frank¬ 
lin St., Milwaukee. 
A set of colored bird slides with a type-written lecture 
may be rented from Prof. W. S. Marshall, 1-14 E. Gorham 
St., Madison, Wis. 
Illinois Schools may use, without expense, a library 
or a lecture with lantern slides, by applying to Mrs. 
ltuthven Deane, 504 N. State St., Chicago. 
ft— -- 
The Sparrow=Hawk. 
I Adult male, upper parts reddish brown and bluish, 
barred with black; tail reddish brown, with abroad black 
band near end; black stripes on sides of head; under parts 
reddish brown, somewhat spotted with black. Female, 
back, wings and tail barred with black; under parts 
streaked with brown. Length, 10 inches. 
Nest, in hollow trees. Eggs, three to seven, finely and 
evenly marked with reddish brown. 
Every boy or girl who lias lived or visited 
on a farm knows the sparrow hawk. He is 
the smallest of the birds of prey, but unlike 
I most of them, lie lives in the fields and-mead¬ 
ows rather than in the forests. One may 
often see him perched on a dead tree top, a 
telegraph pole, a fence rail—any point from 
which he can look down upon the field below, 
or flitting from one perch to another, or again 
poising on fluttering wings and swooping to 
seize a hapless mouse in the grass beneath. 
Ilis shrill, rapidly repeated cry is a familiar 
sound in the country, and has gained for him 
in some places the name “Killie-hawk.” 
I have been greatly interested in a pair of 
sparrow-hawks which have for several years 
spent their winters in town. I find them each 
year in the busiest part of a busy city; and 
they seem quite indifferent to the noises and 
bustle of the crowded streets. 
I may see them any day from November to 
April. At times they are about day after day, 
and again I miss them for weeks together. 
My office is on the twelfth floor of a high 
building; from the window one may look down 
upon ihe roofs and towers of several pub¬ 
lic buildings, while a church spire near by 
rises to the level of the eye. The towers and 
peaks of these buildings are the perches of my 
hawks; I hear their shrill calls as they pass 
m\ \\ indow, flying to and from the weather 
\ fine which surmounts the steeple. 
A flock of pigeons lives in the neighboor- 
hood. There are fifteen or twenty of them. 
They frequent the roofs below my window, 
and have a habit of pattering along the eaves 
find fluttering across open areas. I have re¬ 
peatedly seen one of the hawks, perched on 
some pinnacle above, wait until one of the 
pigeon# takes wing, then dash down on it 
vith wonderful swiftness, passing the pigeon 
and flitting off to another look-out point. 
Meantime the flock of pigeons rises in alarm, 
and after circling above the roof settles amain. 
O 
Soon another opportunity comes, and the 
hawk darts down again, and again the pigeons 
are in the air. After a few repetitions, the 
Pigeons seem to become thoroughly fright¬ 
ened, and rising in the air they fly in a 
compact body far out over the city and above 
the river beyond; they remain on wing for 
a long time and settle at last on some 
house top a quarter of a mile away or 
more. I have watched these encounters care¬ 
fully, and I have not yet seen the hawks actu¬ 
ally strike a pigeon; I think that the hawk 
is playing merely—that he takes a sort of 
pleasure in harrying the pigeons. 
I do not feel sure that I know why these 
sparrow-hawks come to town each year; but 
I think it is because they find more to eat 
there than in the country. As a rule, hawks 
do not go far away to the south in winter as 
many birds do, though they do travel south¬ 
ward when deep snows come. Their principal 
winter food is of mice and other small animals, 
and these in winter are hard to find in the 
country meadows, for they have tunnels be¬ 
neath the snow and do not often venture out¬ 
side in cold weather. I think that these par¬ 
ticular sparrow-hawks (and probably many 
others of their kind) have learned that there 
is plenty for them in the city, even in winter, 
and so they come back each year. Fortun¬ 
ately for them, they come to a place where 
dangers are few. 
