THE cooper's hawk. 29 



gone. At that instant, a Cooper's Hawk, that had evidently 

 just made a swoop at the flock and missed it, alighted on a 

 small tree that hung over the water, and remained perfectly 

 motionless. Now, when man attempts to secure any of 

 these young ducks, the parent almost always flies off", while 

 the young dive and swim under water to the banks of the 

 stream or pond where they may be. When a bird of prey 

 makes his appearance, the whole family dives beneath the 

 surface, and swims off"; the mother in one direction, the 

 young in another. I have noticed the same fact several 

 times, and conclude that the parent, who frequently makes 

 her appearance above the surface, does so because she is 

 capable of enduring submersion better than her young, 

 and shows herself often, a little farther from her offspring 

 every time, until she had led their pursuer away from 

 them ; giving them, in the mean time, a chance to swim off", 

 and conceal themselves. The hawk, in this instance, was 

 not to be deceived. He followed the parent but once, and 

 then immediately returned to his perch. The banks of the 

 river at this place were steep, there was no vegetation 

 growing in the water, and the chances for obtaining a meal 

 from one of the young ducks were decidedly in the hawk's 

 favor. 



The young ducks are very expert divers. They have the 

 faculty of sinking beneath the surface at any alarm, and 

 will remain there perhaps half a minute. Unfortunately 

 for them, they cannot swim beneath the surface a great 

 distance, and generally come up quite near the place where 

 they went down. The hawk sat attentively inspecting the 

 river in different places; and, as one of the young birds 

 made its appearance, he marked it for his victim. The 

 moment it rose to the surface, he made a swoop for it, 

 when, of course, it dove. This was repeated several times, 

 the young duck remaining beneath the water a shorter 

 length of time at each dive. Soon it was manifest that the 

 nawk would obtain his quarry, when, as he flew fo'* 



