BIRDS THAT PREY AND SOME THAT DO NOT 477 



about the eagle's general appearance and character. 

 The crow's conversation sounded most profane. 

 All the time that Jim Crow was swearing at his 

 big neighbor he ruffled his sable feathers and 

 dragged his somber wings along the limb of the 

 tree as he strutted backward and forward out- 

 side of the danger limit. Uncle Sam has a mate 

 and a nest somewhere over the mountain, but his 

 mate seldom accompanies him to visit us at Big 

 Tink. 



The large birds of prey all make interesting 

 additions to your back-yard zoo, and are none of 

 them hard to tame, although many are not easy 

 to capture. 



There are possibly none of the hawks or eagles 

 which cannot be taught to hunt as the falcons of 

 old were taught, but this requires time and patience 

 and the description of the method of training 

 them would take up all the room allowed for this 

 chapter. 



There are possibly at least twenty kinds of hawks 

 within reach of most of the readers of this arti- 

 cle, and it may be more than that for some of 

 them; then there are the owls, and the mighty 

 eagle. There was an old fisherman a few years ago 

 on Long Island Sound who always had a pet eagle 

 supervising his work and incidentally devouring all 

 the small fish his friend saw fit to allow him to eat. 



The best time to capture any of the hooked- 

 billed, sharp-clawed birds is when they are quite 

 young and this can only be successfully ac- 



