d and agility. It is a test of wing and
wind. Every muscle is taxed, and every nerve strained. Such cries of
terror and consternation on the part of the bird, tacking to the right
and left, and making the most desperate efforts to escape, and such
silent determination on the part of the hawk, pressing the bird so
closely, flashing and turning, and timing his movements with those of
the pursued as accurately and as inexorably as if the two constituted
one body, excite feelings of the deepest concern. You mount the fence
or rush out of your way to see the issue. The only salvation for the
bird is to adopt the tactics of the moth, seeking instantly the cover
of some tree, bush or hedge, where its smaller size enables it to move
about more rapidly. These pirates are aware of this, and therefore
prefer to take their prey by one fell swoop. You may see one of them
prowling through an orchard, with the yellowbirds hovering about him,
crying, Pi-ty, pi-ty, in the most desponding tone; yet he seems not to
regard them, knowing, as do they, that in the close branches they are
as safe as if in a wall of adamant.

August is the month of the high-sailing hawks. The hen-hawk is the
most noticeable. He likes the haze and calm of these long, warm days.
He is a bird of leisure, and seems always at his ease. How beautiful
and majestic are his movements! So self-poised and easy, such an
entire absence of haste, such a magnificent amplitude of circles and
spirals, such a haughty, imperial grace, and, occasionally, such
daring aerial evolutions!

With slow, leisurely movement, rarely vibrating his pinions, he mounts
and mounts in an ascending spiral till he appears a mere speck against
the summer sky; then, if the mood seizes him, with wings half closed,
like a bent bow, he will cleave the air almost perpendicularly, as if
intent on dashing himself to pieces against the earth; but on nearing
the ground he suddenly mounts again on broad, expanded wing, as if
rebounding upon the air, and sails leisurely away. It is the sublimest
feat of the season. One holds his breath till he sees him rise again.

If inclined to a more gradual and less precipitous descent, he fixes
his eye on some distant point in the earth beneath him, and thither
bends his course. He is still almost meteoric in his speed and
boldness. You see his path down the heavens, straight as a line; if
near, you hear the rush of his wings; his shadow hurtles across the
fields, and