The Natural History of Selborne

The old speckled Bantam sits on eight eggs.  Sorbus aucuparia, the Quickent-tree, or mountain-ash full of bloom.  The bunches of red berries would make a fine appearance in winter: but they are devoured by thrushes, as soon as they turn colour.  Tanner shot a hen Sparrow-hawk as she was sitting on her eggs in an old crow’s nest on one of the beeches in the High wood.  The bird fell to the ground, &, what was very strange, brought down with her one of the eggs unbroken.  The eggs of Sparrow-hawks, like those of other birds of prey, are round, & blunt-ended, & marked at one end with a bloody blotch.  The hen bird of this species is a fine large hawk; the male is much smaller, & more slender.  Hawks seldom build any nest.  This Hawk had in her craw the limbs of an unfledged lark.