an hour. When the swooping hawk had rushed down to his level, he
was nearly fifty yards in the lead.

In such a case most of the larger hawks would have given up the chase,
and soared again to abide the chance for a more fortunate swoop. But
not so the implacable goshawk. His great pinions were capable not only
of soaring and sailing and swooping, but of the rapid and violent
flapping of the short-winged birds; and he had at his command a speed
even greater than that of the rushing fugitive. As he pursued, his
wings tore the air with a strident, hissing noise; and the speed of
the drake seemed as nothing before that savage, inescapable onrush.
Had the drake been above open water, he would have hurled himself
straight downward, and seized the one chance of escape by diving; but
beneath him at this moment there was nothing but naked swamp and
sloppy flats. In less than two minutes the hiss of the pursuing wings
was close behind him. He gave a hoarse squawk, as he realized that
doom had overtaken him. Then one set of piercing talons clutched his
outstretched neck, cutting clean through his wind-pipe; and another
set bit deep into the glossy chestnut of his breast.

For several days the widowed duck kept calling loudly up and down the
edges of the reeds--but at a safe distance from the nest. When she
went to lay, she stayed ever longer and longer on the eggs, brooding
them. Three more eggs she laid after the disappearance of her mate,
and then, having nine in the nest, she began to sit; and the open
water beyond the reed fringes saw her no more.

At first she would slip off the nest for a few minutes every day, very
stealthily, to feed and stretch and take a noiseless dip in the
shallow water among the reeds; but as time went on she left the eggs
only once in two days. Twice a day she would turn the eggs over
carefully, and at the same time change their respective positions in
the nest, so that those which had been for some hours in the centre,
close to her hot and almost naked breast, might take their turn in the
cooler space just under her wings. By this means each egg got its fair
share of heat, properly distributed, and the little life taking shape
within escaped the distortion which might have been caused by lying
too long in one position. Whenever the wary brown mother left the
nest, she covered the eggs with down, now, which kept the warmth in
better than leaves could. And whenever she came back from her brief
swi