178 



;iii<l, (o all appcaiaMccs, clinched, to wilhiii about one 

 liiiiidicd vaids of the earth, when they parted. Evi 

 deutlj neithei- hi id iiad leceived uuich injury, as they 

 both, after takinjj: short Hights across the meadow, 

 ascended in co-nipany with two or three of their com- 

 panions that had accompanied them part way down 

 to main body. Another individual closed his 

 wings until the body presented a triangular outline, 

 descended with almost lightning-like rapidity to the 

 top of a sycamore, where it alighted, and remained 

 for some seconds pluniing itself. This party of hawks, 

 Eifter performing for nearly twenty minutes these 

 and numerous other aerial antics, continued their 

 southern flight. 



THEY BATTLE IN MID-AIR. 



Combats in mid-air are quite common among Red 

 tailed Hawks. I have repeatedly witnessed such bat- 

 tles, and am fully convinced that in the great majority 

 of cases food is the incentive to such action. Illustra- 

 tive of the superior vision of this hawk — and the same 

 applies to other of the Rapacia — the following is given, 

 as observed by the writer: A clear morning early in 

 March, I saw a Red-tail circling over the meadows; 

 (.very circle took him higher and higher in the air, 

 until, at an altitude where he appeared no larger than 

 a blackbird, he stopped, and with nearly closed wings, 

 descended like an arrow to a tree near by me; from 

 this perch, almost the same instant he had alighted, 

 he flew to the ground and snatched from its grassy 

 covert a mouse. The momentum with which this bird 

 passed through the atmosphere produced a sound not 

 verv unlike that of the rush of distant water. 



