Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/416

394 beating the field, conscious no doubt of the game that lurked in the stubble. Hence we may conclude that this bird of prey was rendered very daring and bold by hunger, and that hawks cannot always seize their game when they please. We may farther observe, that they cannot pounce their quarry on the ground where it might be able to make a stout resistance, since so large a fowl as a pheasant could not but be visible to the piercing eye of a hawk, when hovering over the field. Hence that propensity of cowering and squatting till they are almost trod on, which no doubt was intended as a mode of security; though long rendered destructive to the whole race of gallinæ by the invention of nets and guns.—. Of the great boldness and rapacity of birds of prey when urged on by hunger, I have seen several instances; particularly, when shooting in the winter in company with two friends, a woodcock flew across us, closely pursued by a small hawk: we all three fired at the woodcock instead of the hawk, which, notwithstanding the report of three guns close by it, continued its pursuit of the woodcock, struck it down, and carried it off, as we afterwards discovered.

At another time, when partridge-shooting with a friend, we saw a ring-tail hawk rise out of a pit with some large bird in its claws; though at a great distance; we both fired and obliged it to drop its prey, which proved to be one of the partridges which we were in pursuit of; and lastly, in an evening, I shot at and plainly saw that I had wounded a partridge, but it being late, was obliged to go home without finding it again. The next morning I walked round my land without any gun, but a favourite old spaniel followed my heels. When I came near the field where I wounded the bird the evening before, I heard the partridges call, and seeming to be much disturbed. On my approaching the bar-way, they all rose, some on my right and some on my left hand; and just before and over my head, I perceived (though indistinctly from the extreme velocity of their motion) two birds fly directly against each other, when instantly, to my great astonishment, down dropped a partridge at my feet; the dog immediately