THE FAERY YEAR 



words carry images which suit well this terrible 

 reiver of the air. 



It well may be that the hawk takes the air some- 

 times for the sheer joy in the flying ; his spiring 

 ascents into heights from which he cannot effectually 

 search out prey on the earth give one this idea ; and 

 that there is pleasure and health for some birds in 

 flight, apart from courtship and song and food, I 

 am much inclined to believe. But the real end of 

 this amazing mechanism of flight is prey. Remorse- 

 less life-taking with violence was never so masked by 

 beauty. The red hawk, in the blue of a spring day, 

 is so refined in material as to seem a spirit ; but it is 

 the fell spirit of plunder and bloodshed. This is 

 the pitiable side to so much of the beauty and won- 

 derful design in Nature one of the desperate riddles 

 of the world. 



The Ardent Lapwing 



The object of the flights of the lapwings over 

 the ploughed field may be practical, like the hawk's 

 practical courtship with the lapwing, practical 

 catering with the hawk ; but here ornament and 

 display are much more noticeable, together with a 

 sheer ecstasy in living. The fire of lapwing life 

 burns at white heat in April. This is the most 

 sleepless bird in England. On the moonlit marsh, 

 where hundreds of lapwings nest, he is twirling and 

 tumbling and crying all night. On dark nights even 



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