166 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



tected the transit of the first by his shadow on the rock, 

 and I look toward the sun for him. Though he is made 

 light beneath to conceal him, his shadow betrays him. 

 A hawk must get out of the wood, must get above it, 

 where he can sail. It is narrow dodging for him amid 

 the boughs. He cannot be a hawk there, but only perch 

 gloomily. Now I see a large one — perchance an eagle, 

 I say to myself ! — down in the valley, circling and cir- 

 cling, higher and wider. This way he comes. How beau- 

 tiful does he repose on the air, in the moment when 

 he is directly over you, and you see the form and tex- 

 ture of his wings ! How light he must make himself, 

 how much earthy heaviness expel, before he can thus 

 soar and sail ! He carries no useless clogs there with 

 him. They are out by families ; while one is circling 

 this way, another circles that. Kites without strings. 

 Where is the boy that flies them ? Are not the hawks 

 most observed at this season ? 



March 30, 1853. The motions of a hawk correcting 

 the flaws in the wind by raising his shoulder from time 

 to time, are much like those of a leaf yielding to them. 

 For the little hawks are hunting now. You have not to 

 sit long on the Cliffs before you see one. 



March 2, 1855. Heard two hawks scream. There 

 was something truly March-like in it, like a prolonged 

 blast or whistling of the wind through a crevice in the 

 sky, which, like a cracked blue saucer, overlaps the 

 woods. Such are the first rude notes which prelude 

 the summer's quire, learned of the whistling March 

 wind. 



Oct. 22, 1855. I sat on a bank at the brook crossing, 



