Midsummer Memoranda 



school up in the country I saw one drop 

 like a shot from just such a smooth and 

 quiet voyage, seize in his talons a fat hen 

 from amongst a small fiock of poultry in a 

 yard adjoining our play-ground, and rise 

 rapidly with it directly overhead. 



Hungry and rapacious as he was, however, 

 the sound of fifty or sixty lusty young 

 voices, raised in a simultaneous shout, was 

 too much for him; and at a height of 

 probably two hundred feet he let go his 

 prey and it came flopping to earth, landing 

 with something of a thud, yet none the 

 worse for its sudden and unexpected excur- 

 sion. 



Another vigorous bird of this same general 

 family is the American Osprey, or Fish 

 Hawk. He is rather handsome in appear- 

 ance, being brown of wing and tail and 

 white-breasted. Although really a shore- 

 bird, I have seen him take fish quite a 

 number of times in the Schuylkill and 

 Perkiomen, and on each occasion he went 

 into the water at an angle, and with a 

 great splash, and came up with the wriggling 



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