Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/88

 of a tree, and making another stoop. The rapidity of their move- ments, and the sudden turns which they make to avoid coming in contact with the branches, is truly astonishing. Although he glides like an arrow through the wood, the sparrow-hawk falls more frequently before cock-shooting parties than other birds of prey. True, his quick perceptions give him full notice of the sportsman's advance with his noisy beaters ; yet all the "feathered songsters of the grove" being just then in confusion, he hovers about to take advantage of their unguarded movements, until some sportsman brings him to the ground.

"Very often, of a summer evening, the shrill whistle of some little bird directs attention to the sparrow-hawk as he returns home, flying high in air, with a bird in his talons. I am inclined to think they carry their prey considerable distances, having often watched them flying off with it, at a good height, and in a straight line, until they left my sight in the direction of some woods. Nor does the male bird always make his repast in peace, for in July last, while riding along a road through a wood, two sparrow- hawks crossed me about twenty times. One had some small bird in his talons ; the other hawk (a female, perhaps his own partner), followed him everywhere, while he twisted and turned in all directions, throwing her out at the turns. I watched them for a quarter of an hour, and then rode on.

"A sparrow-hawk robbed me of a little snow-white pea-fowl, a few days old, — the only white one in a brood of five, — singling it out from the others while they were all being fed by a lady at her hall-door steps."

As a gamekeeper at Ormeau, the seat of the Marquis of Donegal, near Belfast, was one day feeding young pheasants, a sparrow-hawk swept close past his feet, and bore off one of the innocents. On attempting, the next day, to repeat the same feat of dexterity, its life fell a sacrifice; the keeper, in expectation of another visit, having come armed with his gun to the feeding- ground.

At the end of October, 1840, as two shooters, in a boat in Belfast bay, had just fired at and killed a few dunlins (Tringa va-