30 DHE AUD BONS BALE ble 
him. Smaller than either of the species mentioned above, but appearing 
larger than it really is on account of the long tail, Cooper’s Hawk is very 
different in other ways also. Not only is the tail longer but the wings are 
shorter and more rounded; and instead of soaring boldly overhead in an 
‘open and above-board” fashion, so that chickens and wild game may 
easily see it and safely run to shelter, Cooper’s Hawk skulks behind the 
hedge rows or any convenient cover until near enough to dash upon its 
prey almost with the velocity of lightning, so that the chicken, quail, or 
other bird thus attacked has little chance to escape, so swift and sudden 
is the onslaught. This destructive hawk lives almost entirely on birds 
of various sorts and is the real murderer and thief in at least ninety cases 
out of a hundred when chickens are caught by hawks. 
Another, equally destructive to smaller birds up to the size of a 
pigeon, is the Sharp-shinned Hawk, so called from the extreme slender- 
ness of its legs. This is an exact miniature of Cooper’s Hawk, both being 
bluish slate color above and barred with reddish brown or cinnamon 
color and white beneath when adult, brown above and striped with 
brown on white ground beneath when young. The Sharp-shinned Hawk 
has an original and most effective way of catching Woodpeckers. The 
latter can easily evade the attack of a single hawk by deftly dodging 
behind a tree or the opposite side of a limb when the dash is made; not 
so, however, when two hawks dash simultaneously at him from opposite 
directions. This the Sharpshins do, and Mr. W oodpecker i is invariably 
“a goner.”” Both Cooper’s Hawk and the Sharpshinned Hawk should be 
killed whenever the opportunity offers, but the farmer who considers his 
true interests will spare both the Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks 
as most valuable destroyers of vermin. 
That little feathered fiend, the Sharp-shin, should not be confounded 
with another small hawk, the common Sparrow Hawk, so called, perhaps, 
because he does not eat Sparrows. The latter is well known to most 
people in the country and may be recognized by his tendency to frequent 
the large dead trees in a clearing or deadening, where the eggs are laid 
in a deserted hole of the Flicker or Yellow-hammer or in a natural 
cavity, and by his shrill call of ‘‘killick, killick, killick,” rapidly and 
frequently repeated. The Sparrow Hawk feeds chiefly on mice, especially 
the field mice so destructive to young fruit trees and root crops of which 
he destroys so vast a number that he should be rigidly protected. Besides 
mice his food comprises grasshoppers, locusts, and other large insects. 
He is a most persistent and successful mouser, and no doubt many of you 
have seen him hovering in a fixed position some fifty feet above the 
ground in some meadow, then shift his position and poise again, as he 
watches and follows the course of a mouse running through the grass, 
until at an opportune moment he drops like a stone upon the victim, 
bears it away to his young or to be devoured by himself from the limb 
of some old dead tree. 
