THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS. 35 



haze and the calm of these long, warm days. He is a 

 bird of leisure, and seems always at his ease. How 

 beautiful and majestic are his movements ! So self- 

 poised and easy, such an entire absence of haste, such 

 a magnificent amplitude of circles and spirals, such a 

 haughty, imperial grace, and, occasionally, such daring 

 aerial evolutions ! 



With slow, leisurely movement, rarely vibrating his 

 pinions, he mounts and mounts in an ascending spiral 

 till he appears a mere speck against the summer sky • 

 then, if the mood seizes him, with wings half-closed, 

 like a bent bow, he will cleave the air almost perpen- 

 dicularly, as if intent on dashing himself to pieces 

 against the earth ; but on nearing the ground, he sud- 

 denly mounts again on broad, expanded wing, as if 

 rebounding upon the air, and sails leisurely away. It 

 is the sublimest feat of the season. One holds his 

 breath till he sees him rise again. 



If inclined to a more gradual and less precipitous 

 descent, he fixes his eye on some distant point in the 

 earth beneath him, and thither bends his course. He 

 is still almost meteoric in his speed and boldness. You 

 see his path down the heavens, straight as a line ; if 

 near, you hear the rush of his wings ; his shadow 

 hurtles across the fields, and in an instant you see him 

 quietly perched upon some low tree or decayed stub in 

 a swamp or meadow, with reminiscences of frogs and 

 mice stirring in his maw. 



When the south-wind blows, it is a study to see three 



