THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 105 



by holding food before them and flying on with the 

 dainty morsel, uttering encouraging calls.* 



" In the spring of 1872/' writes Liebe to Brehm, 

 " I noticed a pair of falcons circling over a wood. They 

 were the terror of cranes living in that region. I hap- 

 pened to be passing there daily, and saw that for eight 

 days one of the falcons came every evening to the wood 

 and perched in a tree for about a quarter of an hour. 

 After that he flew searchingly around the valley from 

 time to time. I thought that the female must have been 

 shot, but this suspicion was not confirmed. After some 

 days she came again to the wood with the male at the 

 usual hour, between 6 and 7 p. m., accompanied also by 

 two young ones, which were still so helpless as hardly to 

 be able to keep their equilibrium when perching in the 

 trees. Soon both the old birds were skimming through 

 the air, flying against the wind in their play. A beauti- 

 ful performance, which I had once seen in N'orway, and 

 once by the male of this same pair. The male 

 soon settled down, but the female kept up her won- 

 derful evolutions, constantly drawing nearer to the 

 young ones, till at last she shoved one of them, with a 

 side push, from the bough, whether with her wings or 

 breast my glass was not strong enough for me to see. 

 The little one must fly whether willing or no, and after 

 clumsily trying to imitate the movements of the old 

 bird, it soon lit again. Thereupon the mother pushed 

 the other one off its high perch and compelled it to fly 

 Hke the first. Shortly they made both the young ones 

 practice together, drove them aloft slantingly against 

 the wind, shot perpendicularly down and then up again 

 in splendid curves, and displayed all the skill that be- 



* A. and K. Miiller, Thiere der Heimath, i, p. 28. 



