Though the Sparrow-hawk, taken altogether, is a small bird, yet he is a great thief, as may be gathered from his piercing eye. He is the terror of all birds of the Starling size, which he seizes while on the wing. Like a true robber, he watches for his booty in a secret kind of way; having selected one from among a company of flying birds, he flies below, among the furrows in the cornfield, along the hedges, and the border of the woods, and on to a haystack. When he has seen his destined prey he flutters sideways, rises into the air in circles, and when the little birds fly up he sinks somewhat lower; when at the proper height he claps his wings close to his body, and drops like a piece of lead on to the chosen, fluttering victim, seizes it by the neck in its flight, and strangles it with his sharp claws. He then flies slowly with it to a bush or a grassy-mound and devours it. It winters in Hungary; it is not rare, but at the same time not very common. Its cry sounds like “_Kirk, kirk, kirk_,” or a rapid “_ki, ki, ki_,” or a long drawn-out “_kāk, kāk_.” This bird was the sporting Hawk of our forefathers, and the people of the interior of Asia, and the Kurds, employ it for hunting at the present day. Wherever it goes it carries devastation in its train, especially among the domestic fowls. Its cry is loud and protracted. “_Iwiā!_” it repeats quickly on seizing its prey. When [Illustration: HARMFUL. THE SPARROW-HAWK.] pairing the note is _Gāck, gāck, gāck_,” and then more rapidly “_Giā, giack, giack_.” The Sparrow-hawk is well known all over Great Britain and also in Ireland, in all those districts which are well timbered. Its food consists for the most part of small birds, from the Thrush to the Wren. These are snapped up as the bird glides stealthily along the hedgerows or on the outskirts of some wood. In our own country it has been trained to take Partridges, Quails, etc. In India and Japan also it is used by the native falconers. It is a bold daring raider of our woods and fields. This bird has a history which reaches back into the far past. It received its latin name, _Accipiter nisus_, because of a myth relating to King Nisus of Megara, who, it is said, had one hair of red-gold colour, on the preservation of which depended the conservation of his kingdom. Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, being in love with Minos, King of Crete, son of Jupiter and Europa, treacherously cut the golden hair of her father Nisus, and therefore he and his country were easily vanquished. The gods, angry with the unnatural daughter, changed her into a Lark, and Nisus into a Sparrow-hawk, under which form the unhappy father pursues his daughter unceasingly, in order to satisfy a thirst for vengeance. The ancients had all sorts of mysterious ideas, in connection with the Sparrow-hawk; they believed, for one thing, that he was the primogenitor of the Cuckoo. There is always something interesting in such old myths, in spite of their apparent absurdity.