How a Marsh Hawk Grows 



49 



nearly threu months of domestic toil and devotion on the part of its 

 parents. No wonder that both the parents and the young should 

 cling to the dear, familiar spot. No wonder that the parents should 

 return, year by year, to the hunting range they know so well ; and 

 that even the young, when freed from the trammels of their lairs, 

 should yet come back, for days, as I have seen them do, and 

 haunt the spot wherein they gained their bulk, strengthened their 

 sinews and fortified their wings for freedom. Yet the daily length- 

 ened flight transforms the hasty flapping of the short-tailed tyro 

 into the steadier poise of the practiced wingster : and soon the 

 brown birds, old and young, have left the gray ones to brave the 

 autumn air — and have gone afar to fatten on the southern fields. 



MARSH HAWKS, 34 DAYS OLD 



