OUR AMERICAN OWLS. 



155 



rank may be, there is a strange mix-up in the chirography of the 

 instrument. As to wings and tail and beak and talons, he bears 

 the insignia of a grand connection. It needs an expert to read the 

 document, which, if it shows relation to a noble stock, shows also that 

 Sir Harrier has very ignoble ways. His very mode of hunting is a 

 disgrace to the name of falcon. He will course low in air like a base- 

 born buzzard, and will dog about a small area like a hound after a 

 rabbit, backward and forward, round and round, crossing and recross- 

 ing his course, literally scouring a patch of shrub or bush, or perhaps 

 tall reeds or dank meadow, and harrowing the poor occupant so vult- 

 ure-like, and so utterly unlike the decisiveness of action and brilliancy 

 of dash of the genuine falcon that, with the whir of a rifle-shot, swoops 

 from its observatory in the sky. Not one of these royal points can 

 the marsh-hawk claim. He harries or worries his victim, and so 

 comes honestly by his unenviable name. Although, as a high author- 

 ity declares, " he is no weakling nor coward," yet he is for his be- 

 longings a mean, bullying fellow. Let us watch him from this tree. 



Fig. 11. Marsh-Hawk, or Harkieb {Circus cyaneus). 



He is harrowing a meadow-hen with her young. He has been at this 

 worriment full fifteen minutes. Now he makes a pounce for one of 

 the little ones. But the mother-bird proves herself a heroine on the 

 spur, and puts him to a mean retreat. And then what hawk but he, 

 sloven that he is, would nest upon the ground so vulture-like ? There 

 is also a tendency to fluffiness in his plumage, and a cattish noiseless- 

 ness in his movements, and his queer phiz has a little of the owlish 

 cast. Well, there is no use in denying it, it is true of him, and all 

 these harriers, as Dr. Coues observes, " They look like owls, behave 

 like buzzards, and nest like vultures." Hence, " the marsh-hawk com- 

 bines, in a notable degree, the characters of several raptorial types, 

 being, in particular, a link between hawks and owls." 



