266 RIVERBY 



Gilbert White quotes the great Linnaeus as saying 

 that " hawks make a truce with other birds as long 

 as the cuckoo is heard. " This is also a superstition. 

 Watch closely, and you will see the small hawks in 

 pursuit of birds at all seasons; and when a hawk 

 pursues a bird, or when one bird pursues another, 

 it has the power to tack and turn, and to time its 

 movements to that of the bird pursued, which is 

 quite marvelous. The sparrow might as well dodge 

 its own shadow as to dodge the sharp-shinned hawk. 

 It escapes, if at all, by rushing into a bush or tree, 

 where the movements of its enemy are impeded by 

 the leaves and branches. 



Speaking of hawks, reminds me that I read the 

 other day in one of the magazines a very pretty poem, 

 in which a hawk was represented poised in mid- air, 

 on motionless wing, during the calm of a midsum- 

 mer day. Now of a still day this is an impossible 

 feat for a hawk or any other bird. The poet had not 

 observed quite closely enough. She had noted (as 

 who has not?) the hawk stationary in the air on 

 motionless wing, but she failed to note, or she had 

 forgotten, that the wind was blowing. He cannot 

 do it on a calm day ; the blowing wind furnishes the 

 power necessary to buoy him up. He so adjusts his 

 wings to the moving currents that he hangs station- 

 ary upon them. When the hawk hovers in the air 

 of a still day, he is compelled to beat his wings rap- 

 idly. He must expend upon the air the power 

 which, in the former case, is expended upon him. 

 Thus does hasty and incomplete observation mislead 

 one. 



