WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



rough-legged, red-shouldered, and red-tailed buz- 

 zards, the marsh-harrier, and some others; and, 

 among owls, the fierce snowy owl, which will take 

 a grouse from its roost or carry off a hare; the 

 barred, great horned-owl, long-eared, short-eared, 

 mottled, and little saw-whet owls. Along the ad- 

 jacent shores of Long Island and New Jersey are 

 seen the various sea -ducks, ''coots,'' and geese; 

 the loon, and an occasional Northern sand-piper, 

 like the splendid purple one; the herring, kitti- 

 wake, laughing, black-backed, and several other 

 gulls; and irregularly certain wandering sea- 

 birds whose lives are not so much affected by cli- 

 matic conditions as are those of the land-birds. 



Deprived of the small reptiles, the young of 

 squirrels and other mammals, eggs, and the large 

 night-flying moths and beetles which in summer 

 form a good portion of their subsistence, the pre- 

 daceous birds become more fierce in winter than 

 at any other time, and exercise all their cunning 

 in the pursuit of such meadow-mice and other 

 animals as are imprudent enough to step out of 

 their subnivean galleries, or in the capture of 

 weaker birds. The few late fish-hawks remain 

 by the sea-shore, plunging in now and then for 

 their finny prey, which the bald eagle very often 



69 



