224 Bird-Land Echoes. 



These hawks, which outnumber all the other large 

 species, appear in abundance in time to greet the 

 nut-dropping winds of October, and they stay with 

 us until April. At least one pair may be found 

 nesting near by and remaining all summer, but 

 there is then too much to look after to be concerned 

 about them, and they never seem to intrude upon 

 our notice. While to be found if searched for, 

 weeks may pass without our seeing or hearing them. 

 How true this is of any one form of life ! We may 

 almost forget its existence until some specialist calls 

 attention to it, and then we see little else until his 

 influence has given place to more generalized con- 

 siderations of wild life that, as a whole, concern us 

 more nearly. The mere presence of a herpetologist 

 lately filled the whole hill-side with salamanders, 

 and I found then, as I had before, species in, and 

 not merely iicm^, water, which have been unwisely 

 stated to be strictly terrestrial because the observer 

 had only found them under such conditions. To 

 formulate fixed rules limiting the actions or habitat 

 of any wild creature is simply absurd. How could 

 evolution operate if there really was such fixity of 

 habit ? As well say of a salamander that it will die 

 if caught in the rain as assert that it is never seen in 

 a brook. 



In the depth of winter — one of the old-fashioned 

 kind, with snow a foot deep and the earth and water 

 alike one solid rock — the red-tails are often deprived 

 of their daily allowance of mice, and then I have 

 seen them seeking the shelter of the south hill-side, 



