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28 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
Powerful, active, and gifted with great rapidity of flight, 
he is able to attack and conquer birds and animals greatly 
his superior in size and weight. The Common Hare (Lepus 
Americanus) often falls a victim to his voracity. Ducks, 
grouse, squirrels, and small birds, are destroyed by him; 
and I have known of his capturing and eating snakes and 
other reptiles, and even grasshoppers and crickets. 
In hunting for prey, he usually flies just above the trees 
in the forest, and quite near the earth in the open country. 
His flight consists of a rapid succession of beatings of the 
wings, with intervals of equal periods of soarings. On 
discovering a bird or other object that he may wish to 
capture, he immediately gives chase. If the bird takes to 
the foliage of the trees, he immediately follows, turning at 
every turn, doubling and twisting through the trees with 
wonderful speed and success; and the chase is usually but 
a very short one indeed before he alights to feed on the 
quarry that he has secured. 
He is very destructive to the flocks of young ducks that 
breed in the wilder districts of the country. JI remember 
an instance of one of his raids on these birds that is not 
without interest. 
While on a hunting and collecting excursion in the wilds 
of Maine, up the Magalloway River,—a beautiful stream 
that empties into the Androscoggin, near Lake Umbagog, — 
I wandered down the river banks, that are, for nearly the 
entire length of the stream, fringed with a thick growth of 
trees, away from the camp perhaps a mile. I was watching 
an old Black Duck (Anas obscura) and her brood of eight 
“‘flappers”’ disporting themselves in the water, and impa- 
tiently waiting for an opportunity for a shot; for, kind 
reader, I can assure you that a “ broiled flapper,’ or wild 
duck about half grown, is a delicacy which, once enjoyed, is 
eagerly sought for by the frequenters of the wilderness. As 
I was creeping cautiously within shot of the birds, I sud- 
denly heard a “ quack”? and splash, and the whole bevy was 
