January 
not only pillaging the grain-fields and fruit- 
trees, but having a relish for insects, all kinds 
of flesh, shell-fish, and the like, while their most 
- vicious trait is the destruction of the eggs and 
young of other birds. ‘To estimate the crow 
rightly, one must let admiration and contempt 
lie side by side in his mind, without allowing 
either to neutralize the other. 
The Park is not a favorable place for birds 
of prey, but it has harbored a hawk for several 
weeks this winter. The larger and longer-lived 
birds are correspondingly slow in coming to 
maturity, and until they reach that stage identi- 
fication is difficult and often impossible from 
the plumage. From its rather nondescript 
coloring, this specimen seemed to be immature. 
Gliding silently through the trees, like a spirit 
of evil, it eluded a near approach, and at last 
disappeared altogether. There is something 
spectral and malevolent in the demeanor and 
solitary life of the birds of prey that is of 
peculiar interest. Standing in no possible rela- 
tion of human sympathy, they prove attractive 
in part by the very qualities that are repellent, 
presenting an aspect of bird-life as strange as it 
is fascinating. 
One day, in passing some shrubbery, a faint 
39 
