THESMALL RING-TAILEDHAWK
Is the largest of the Sparrow-Hawk kind, and is a very fierce and pernicious bird, destroying young ducks and chickens, in yards, &c. about farm-houses, in the fields, they kill black-birds, thrushes, and in the winter-season fieldfares and other small birds; I have driven one from a blackbird, and immediately set down a steel trap, covered quite smoothly, placing the same bird on the bridge of the trap, and have taken the Hawk, which returned soon after for its prey. They will likewise frequently come to the chicken-gardens and pheasantries, when you must set a steel trap, baited with a dead chickenor any other of the birds before mentioned; which they delight to feed on, and in all probability you will lay hold of them, and if you find they have been made shy, by reason of the trap striking and not catching them, which will sometimes, though very rarely, happen, you may destroy them after the following manner: take a live chicken, tie it to a small stake drove in the ground, by one of its legs, laying some bread or corn for it to feed on; then get out of sight, with your gun, and the hawk will come and strike at the chicken, when you may easily shoot him, and this method I have often practised with good success.