Fear in Birds, 97 
peregrine has been observed, Baird says, capturing 
birds, only to kill and drop them. Many of the 
Felide, we know, evince a similar habit ; only these 
prolong their pleasure by practising a more refined 
and deliberate cruelty. 
The sudden appearance overhead of this hawk 
produces an effect wonderful to witness. I have 
frequently seen all the inhabitants of a marsh 
struck with panic, acting as if demented, and sud- 
denly grown careless to all other dangers; and on 
such occasions I have looked up confident of seeing 
the sharp-winged death suspended above them in 
the sky. All birds that happen to be on the wing 
drop down as if shot into the reeds or water; ducks 
away from the margin stretch out their necks 
horizontally and drag their bodies, as if wounded, 
into closer cover; not one bird is found bold 
enough to rise up and wheel about the marauder— 
a usual proceeding in the case of other hawks ; 
while, at every sudden stoop the falcon makes, 
threatening to dash down on his prey, a low cry of 
terror rises from the birds beneath; a sound ex- 
pressive of an emotion so contagious that it quickly 
runs like a murmur all over the marsh, as if a 
gust of wind had swept moaning through the 
rushes. As long as the falcon hangs overhead, 
always at a height of about forty yards, threatening 
at intervals to dash down, this murmuring sound, 
made up of many hundreds of individual cries, is 
heard swelling and dying away, and occasionally 
when he drops lower than usual, rising to a sbarp 
scream of terror. 
Sometimes when I have been riding over marshy 
H 
