FEROCIOUS FEMALES.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 August 1925, Page 4

FEROCIOUS FEMALES.

The fact that the ieinales oi the various birds of prey are often larger than the males will come as something of a surprise to most people. The male peregrine was called the tiercel (or, as Shakespeare calls it, the “ tassel ”) because he is one-third less in size than the female; and the same rule applies, in a greater or less degree, to the rest of the hawk tribe. The female is also tiro more courageous. If the nest or eyrie ” containing young be approached, it is the iemale who flashes past the intruder s head in a desperate effort to scare him away. This curious difference in size between the sexes of the hawks is perhaps most apparent in the case ol the sparrow-hawk. As her face suggests, tiie female* is of a more deadly disposition than her peevish-looking husband, and will kill birds larger than herself. The male usually contents himseli with tiis, warblers, finches, and the like: the female prefers such formidable quarry as jays, partridges, wood pigeons, and half-grown pheasants. At a short dash the sparrow-hawk is incredibly swift—a brown streak from above, a flick oi wing with lightning foot-stroke, and a tew pathetic feathers iloat on the hrecoe. With such impetuous ferocity docs the spar-row-hawk attack its victim that there are many instances oi its having dashed through a window-paiici in its efforts to seize the caged bird hanging on the other side; and the writer once discovered. a headless missel-thrush still sitting in a nest. In its whirlwind attack a female sparrow-hawk had swept tlie unhappy bird’s head clean away. The sparrow-hawk sometimes pays dcarlv lor such temerity. A friend, to attract wood-pigeons, fixed in a tree a decoy pigeon made of wood. Me saw, to his amazement, that a hawk was making repeated attacks upon it. He fired, and tlie misguided hawk 101 l dead. It proved to he an xccedingly beautiful female sparrow-hawk.—C aptnin Knight M.C.. F.K.P.K., in the London "Daily Mail."