Vol. LIII. ORILLIA, NOVEMBER, 1921. No. 11. 



POPULAR AND PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGY 



The Life History of a Hobby Horse 



by francis j a. morris, 



Petertooirough, Out. 



Part iii. — Second Chiedhood — The Tree's Incline. 

 ( Co'iitiniied from Page 221) 



So long as thev held the middle space I had thought them a pair of ospreys, 

 but presently, when they had already reached the greatest height I have ever 

 seen these fish hawks flying at, one of the birds rose leisurely up in spiral upon 

 spiral till it appeared little bigger than a skylark " at the last point of vision"; 

 then down it shot in that fearful dive so closely past the outspread form of its 

 floating mate that she seemed to rock where she slept ; "she," for I am almost 

 certain it was the male that made this supreme phmge from empyrean heights ; 

 the other, more passive, maintained the middle space, only now and then 

 stooping, in turn, directly over him, or sweeping aslant with a downward glide 

 to meet him in the common highway of the lesser fowls before he had fully 

 recovered and soared once again into the unchallenged void of his eagle's realm. 

 For nearly an hour from the little row-boat in which I was fishing I watched 

 this royal pair at play. 



At the end of August, there used to be a great routing out of guns, 

 cleaning and oiling, ready for Black Duck ; then came Wood-duck and Teal 

 both the Blue- and the Green-winged, and later still Blue-bills, Saw-bills, 

 Whistlers and several others. The only bird guide available in those days was 

 Mcllwraith's "Birds of Ontario," and I remember hours of puzzling one even- 

 ing over a couple of strangers in the day's bag, that turned out to be two dis- 

 tinct species of Scoter, a surf duck from the Atlantic coast seldom seen in the 

 neighborhood. And once my pupil returned from near the Mississippi Lake 

 with a Cormorant that had fallen to some lucky gun. 



These hunting trips were often the means of enriching our knowledge 

 of Nature by curious observations. One day when my pupil and two others 

 had carefully ensconced themselves in a lonely piece of swamp, each at a 

 different station and in good time for the incoming ducks at sundown, they 

 discovered to their surprise a fourth sportsman had anticipated their calcula- 

 tions and slipped into a "hide" in front of them. All three were watching the 

 first black duck of the evening come whirring towards them, and not yet 

 certain which of the three the duck would select to pass over, when suddenly 

 a large hawk rose from ambush before their eyes, clutched the duck from 

 below, and drew it down again out of sight in the drowned lands. The whole 

 thing was done in a second and apparently with consummate ease ; it looked as 

 simple as the movements of a gymnast where the art of concealing art blinds 

 one to all the nicety of adjustment, the hair's breadth balance of time and 



