264 RABIES IN BIRDS ? 



sitated to draw up the head of the carriage to protect 

 ourselves from its scorching rays. All at once the horses 

 shied, and began to back, which induced us to look out of 

 the vehicle to see what was the matter ; when, to our great 

 astonishment, we observed that they were attacked by a large 

 goshawk, which during a constant flapping of its wings in 

 front of their heads, was savagely attempting to injure them 

 with its beak and talons. The coachman, however, imme- 

 diately jumped down from the box, and with several severe 

 blows of his whip-handle, succeeded in felling the rash 

 assailant to the ground. 



" What might have been the cause of this unexpected 

 enmity," M. Edgren goes on to say, " we were unable to 

 discover, unless it was the great heat that caused the bird to 

 be seized with some distemper analogous to rabies with dogs 

 and others of their congeners." 



For all I know to the contrary, M. Edgren may be 

 quite right in his conjecture. But as the blood of birds 

 is of a considerably higher temperature than that of 

 mammalia, it seems hardly probable that in these northern 

 climes the rays of the sun could have had the extraordinary 

 effect on the goshawk imputed to them. Neither does it 

 seem likely that hunger, as some suggest, impelled it to the 

 attack. The only solution to the story seems to be that, 

 though M. Edgren was in ignorance of the fact, the bird 

 had its nest in the immediate vicinity, and that attachment 

 to its young, rather than a kind of insanity, caused its furious 

 assault on the steeds. 



The goshawk is a most determined enemy to poultry, 

 from which cause it in Sweden very commonly goes by the 

 appropriate name of the Hons-tjuf, or hens '-thief ; and as a 



