t from the place where it
has lain so many hundred years. Some time I will write a
letter about the Holy Land, as I lived there two months. I
hope you will print my letter; it is my first attempt, and I
am fourteen years old. Your March number will find me at
Alexandria, for I take the Beyrouth steamer next week. I
hope, dear ST. NICHOLAS, your Egyptian friend has not tired
you, and I also hope this may find a place in your
Letter-box.

Your loving Egyptian friend,

MAUD STANLEY F.

* * * * *

MOHEGAN LAKE, N. Y.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I send you this letter, a true story
about a fish-hawk.

It was in the middle of April, 1883. A man who was rowing on
one of those lakes east of the Highlands, in the northern
part of Westchester County, espied a large fish-hawk sitting
on a dead limb near the water. The man, having his gun with
him, rowed over toward the hawk, and when in range fired at
him flying. The wounded bird fell, hit on the outer joint of
the left wing. With the help of his companion the man
managed to bring him home. In less than a week, the boy of
the house fed him with fish out of his own hands, and the
hawk did not attempt to claw him. One day the boy wanted to
see how many pounds of fish the hawk would eat. He caught
seven suckers weighing a pound and a half each. The hawk ate
six, one after another, and took the seventh, but refused to
eat it until half an hour afterward. What an enormous
appetite he had! Later on in the summer, the boy would take
him to the water to wash. He did it just as a canary does in
his china bath. The boy would take him and put him on the
side of the boat and row him around, and the hawk would sit
there, taking in everything, as well as the summer visitors,
who were taking him in. The hawk was so tame that his keeper
could smooth his head and chuck him under his beak and the
hawk would only flop his wings and whistle when the boy
turned, as though delighted with what the boy did. This
creature measured five feet eleven inches from tip to tip of
the wings, and came to his death in October of the same
year, by getting caught in the string by which he wa