THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS 



over to my satisfaction. "But what made you desert 

 me in all these eight years?" 



Wasn't this great to find two hawks' nests in the 

 same woods not a quarter of a mile apart ! Here was fun 

 enough laid out for Ned and me. But it will be danger- 

 ous for other birds and squirrels and rabbits which live 

 here. These falls will witness many a tragedy. Little 

 do the picnic parties which come here almost daily 

 realize that four savage robbers are watching them 

 from the tree tops. How blind the average people 

 seem, for I can hardly imagine myself not discovering 

 at least this nest right in the picnic grove before I had 

 been there an hour. 



It will seem strange if these robber families which 

 make their living by killing every smaller creature that 

 comes in their way manage not to disagree among 

 themselves and have some terrible fights. But the 

 probability is that each pair will stay on its own side of 

 the brook and attend strictly to its own business. If 

 either is the aggressor, I think it will be the Cooper's 

 Hawks, for they are bold, pestilent fellows, the worst 

 nuisance of the whole tribe to the farmers, like their 

 smaller relative the Sharp-shinned Hawk, while the 

 Broad-wing is a slow-moving, sedate sort of bird, con- 

 tenting itself mostly with the humbler sorts of prey 

 and seldom troubling poultry. 



I am wondering another thing, too, whether these 

 numerous mountain brooks of this hilly country, with 

 their falls and deep rocky gorges, do not all have their 



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