A LIFE OF FEAR 201 



will have him yet ! '' and he bounds up the tree 

 as high as one's head, and then bites the bark 

 of it in his anger and chagrin. 



The boy says his dog has never bragged since 

 about catching red squirrels " if only the trees 

 were out of reach ! " 



When any of the winged creatures are en- 

 gaged in a life and death race in that way, or 

 in any other race, the tactics of the squirrel do 

 not work; the pursuer never overshoots nor 

 shoots by his mark. The flight of the two is 

 timed as if they were parts of one whole. A 

 hawk will pursue a sparrow or a robin through 

 a zigzag course and not lose • a stroke or half^ a 

 stroke of the wing by reason of any darting to 

 the right or left. The clew is held with fatal 

 precision. No matter how quickly nor how 

 often the sparrow or the finch changes its 

 course, its enemy changes, simultaneously, as if 

 every move was known to it from the first. 



^ The same thing may be noticed among the 

 birds in their love chasings; the pursuer seems 

 to know perfectly the mind of the pursued. 

 This concert of action among birds is very curi- 

 ous. When they are in the alert a flock of 

 sparrows, or pigeons, or cedar-birds, or snow- 

 buntings, or blackbirds, will all take flight as if 

 there was but one bird, instead of a hundred. 

 The same impulse seizes every individual bird 

 at the same instant, as if they were sprung by 

 electricity. 



Or when a flock of birds is in flight, it is 

 still one body, one will; it will rise, or circle, 



