Page:Bird Life Throughout the Year (Salter, 1913).djvu/310

224 sing, relapsing after each effort into the listless attitude so characteristic of all his kin.

Judging from the scattered feathers which mark the sparrow-hawk's "kill," the chaffinch is its most frequent victim, but that it will attempt larger game the well-picked remains of a wood-pigeon not seldom indicate. This is no doubt the work of the hen sparrow-hawk—a much larger and bolder bird than her mate, to whose powers the blackbird forms a more appropriate prey. No other of our raptorial birds is possessed by such a blind ferocity. We have known the sparrow-hawk frequently to dash against the wires of an out-door aviary in the attempt to seize a singing-bird, and for the same purpose it will sometimes enter a room or stun itself against a window-pane in trying to do so. In one instance of which we knew, a sparrow-hawk, not content with killing two parent blackbirds at the nest, returned and took the unfledged young. It probably had a brood to satisfy, and for the wants of such the sparrow-hawk is known to cater with a liberal hand.

Along the brook-side, where we have watched the water-rat on the feed at dusk, and have seen the water-shrews playing about like miniature otters, all the gay tangle of summer, creamy meadow-sweet, purple loosestrife and yellow flag, is now sere and dead. As a Kingfisher darts past, its azure-blue back looks all the more brilliant by contrast with such lifeless