EACH AFTER ITS KIND 



He is at home in the arctics or the tropics, on the 

 sea, on the land, and in the air; a fruit-eater, a 

 grain-eater, a flesh-eater, a nut-eater, an herb- 

 eater; his generaUzed anatomy and his diversified 

 mentaUty make the whole earth his dwelling-place, 

 and all its thousands of treasure-houses are made 

 available for his needs. 



What diversity in unity among the hawks ! Con- 

 trast these two familiar species which are nearly of 

 a size — the marsh hawk and the hen, or red-tailed, 

 hawk. The marsh hawk has the longer tail, and 

 the back of the male is bluish-gray. We see it in 

 summer beating up and down, low over the fields 

 and meadows, its attention fixed upon the ground 

 beneath it. At the same time we may see the hen- 

 hawk soaring aloft, sweeping leisurely around in 

 great circles, or climbing higher in easy spirals, ap- 

 parently abandoning itself to the joy of its aerial 

 freedom. The hen-hawk is a bird of leisure in con- 

 trast with its brother of the marshes. We rarely see 

 it hunting; it is either describing its great circles 

 against the sky, apparently in the same mood that 

 the skater is in who cuts his circles and figures upon 

 the ice; or else it sits perched like a statue high up 

 on some dead branch in the edge of the forest, or 

 on some tree by the roadside, and sees the sum- 

 mer hours go by. Solitude, contemplation, a sense 

 of freedom, seem to be its chief delight, while we 

 rarely see the marsh hawk except when it is intent 



163 



