APRIL 



The Red Hawk 



IN flight for song the skylark, flight for wild 

 revelry the lapwing, flight for ravin the wind- 

 hover, each is matchless. Over the ploughed 

 fields and the rough grass fields that lie on either side 

 of the lonely unfenced road to the downs, one may 

 watch these three any fair, early spring day. Bois- 

 terous weather does not suit the windhover best ; in 

 a gale he is loth to leave the tree ; but moderate 

 wind hinders him little, if at all, in his hover, his 

 spire, and grand upward sweep into the heights. A 

 glorious mastery of the air is this of the hawk's, the 

 aim and end of all aerial accomplishment. Watching 

 it for a while on a sun-steeped spring day, one may 

 cease to think of it as a triumph over, rather it seems 

 kinship with, the air. 



If out of some gross original these master wings 

 have been planed and tapered, this tail fashioned to 

 a fan for flight, this fine body moulded to the very 

 form for air cleavage, how unthinkable the number 

 of steps and the length of the ages that have gone 

 to the making of the red hawk as he is to-day ! It 

 struck me that the grey sarsen stones beneath the 

 bird's haunt, crusted in their plastic time with the 



