practical and excellent work, entitled ‘Falconry, its
Claims, History, and Practice’ (London, 1859), that I
should find it difficult to avoid “ cribbing ” in dilating
upon this aspect of the Gos-Hawk’s character. The
nests of this bird that I have seen were large, rather
shallow structures, placed on the lateral boughs of coniferous
trees, at a considerable height from the ground,
and composed of sticks and twigs; the eggs, three or
four in number, are of a greenish white. My friend
Col. E. Delme Radcliffe, a past master in Falconry and
all matters relating to the habits of raptorial birds,
assures me that in Germany the Gos-Hawks take many
Owls, and I have always found my trained birds ready
and eager to fly at Barn-Owls when they had a chance
of doing so; on one occasion my falconer found a Tawny
Owl in the clutches of one of the Gos-Hawks at her
perch in our flower-garden, and was in time to liberate
the incautious hooter almost uninjured; but, as I have
already said, hardly any flying or running animal that
it can master comes amiss to this Hawk, and the list of
captures at various times by trained Gos-Hawks in my
possession includes hares, rabbits, rats, squirrels, stoats,
weasels, a cat, Owls, Blackbirds,Thrushes, Wood-Pigeons,
Pheasants, Waterhens, and Wild Ducks. In one nest
of this species in Old Castile we found a skull of a young
Kestrel probably taken from its nursery, and I have
heard of instances in which young Honey-Buzzards have
suffered a similar fate. I have met with this species
frequently in the Guadarramas, less often in Andalucia,
and in Switzerland and Rhenish Prussia during the
summer months, and in the island of Sardinia and
European Turkey in the winter. In common with most
of the raptorial birds that breed in Northern Europe,
many Gos-Hawks migrate southwards in autumn, and
the range of this species extends from Lapland and
Siberia to N. India and Algeria, and from Portugal to
China and Japan.
Both the drawings for the accompanying Plates were
taken from living birds at Lilford.