160 THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



BIRDS OF PREY. 



'"pHERE is much in mere bigness, and I am not 

 1 surprised that naturalists, in days gone by, 

 looked upon the eagle and the vulture as the very 

 highest types of bird-life, and that people generally 

 were more impressed with a regal falcon than a timid 

 thrush; and in spite of all biological disquisition and 

 learned anatomical treatises and evolutionary phi- 

 losophy, a bird that outflies all others and preys 

 upon others will be held to be the better bird, and so 

 prove by what it accomplishes that which the system- 

 atist denies concerning him. Certainly on viewing 

 bird-life as we ordinarily see it, and particularly so 

 in this country, we are more impressed by a hawk 

 than a sparrow. Their relative sizes have not all to 

 do with this. The hawk asserts himself, thrusts him- 

 self upon our notice, and the timid sparrow cowers 

 in his presence. We never forget this, and naturally 

 in studying the birds about us turn from power to 

 weakness, and not from the humble stand-point glance 

 upward towards the powerful ; and yet the sparrow 

 and the thrush have a standing in the bird-world 

 that is far more exalted than that of the eagle, falcon, 

 or even the huge king vulture. 



We cannot always forget that these birds, except the 

 vultures, are murderers, as we call them. We know 



