438 



Bird- Lore 



I photographed one of the brood sittmg quietly in my friend's hands. Would 

 that the parents might have seen it ! 



A week later, when we went down with the camera, I could hardly believe 

 my eyes. Two large brown Hawks, counterparts of the mother, perched 

 statuesquely on bush tops and, as we approached, launched out and were 

 joined by a third, whereupon all three great Hawks went flying around so much 

 at home on their wings that it seemed impossible they could have been spotty 

 nestlings a week before. Their tails were shorter than their mother's, and two 



of the birds were decidedly 

 smaller, but one seemed like a 

 fully grown Hawk. 



When the three young had 

 flown off, we hunted through 

 the bushes till we found one we 

 took to be Little Brother, 

 though another of the five was 

 unaccounted for. Little 

 Brother, if it were he, still had 

 some down on his body; but his 

 dark brown back and wings 

 were well feathered, and shoul- 

 ders and belly showed warm 

 tawny color, the belly streaked 

 with it. He could not fly yet, 

 and we took our last photo- 

 graph of him sitting unwillingly 

 on the camp-stool.* 



The next time we saw a 

 Circus family, we came upon 

 them a mile away, a self-reliant 

 band of large brown Hawks, beating over the brush patches by the lake, 

 getting their supper. As I looked at the big, handsome birds admiringly, I 

 realized with regret that the family that had grown up under my eyes, from 

 down to quills, were now fairly launched in the world and I should see them 

 no more. The parent Marsh Hawks, viewed with a little perspective, seemed 

 heroic prairie figures, and their misinterpretation of my motives was forgotten 

 in admiration for their dauntless defense of their young. 



FEATHERED AT LAST 



A CORRECTION 



The photographs published on pages 359 and 360, of the preceding issue of Bird- 

 Lore, were erroneously entitled by the Editor "An Exhibit of the Milton Bird Club." 

 The captions should read, "An Exhibit of the Brookline Bird Club." — F. M. C. 



