Note 61 — Chapter III · THE SPARROW-HAWK

The late Sir Henry Lumsden (who used to hawk “ravine deer” with charg͟hs in Hoti Mardan), told the translator in Scotland that he had frequently seen wild sparrow-hawks kill wood-pigeons, and that he had that very morning seen a sparrow-hawk knock over an old cock pheasant on the lawn, which is was of course unable to hold. Hume, in My Scrap Book (page 132), under the description of his “Dove Hawk” expresses a doubt whether the “true nisus” would kill a bird as large as a dove: vide note 72, page 15.