THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS. 43 



as do they, that in the close branches they are as safe 

 us if in a wall of adamant. 



August is the month of the high sailing hawks. 

 The hen-hawk is the most noticeable. He likes the 

 haze and 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 

 epiral till he appears a mere speck against the sum- 

 mer sky ; then, if the mood seizes him, with wings 

 half-closed, like a bent bow, he will cleave the air 

 almost perpendicularly; as if intent on dashing him- 

 self to pieces against the earth ; but on nearing the 

 ground, he suddenly mounts again on broad, ex- 

 panded wing, as if rebounding upon the air, and sails 

 leisurely away. It is the sublimest feat of the sea- 

 son. 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 meteorb in his speed and boldness. 

 You see his path down the heavens, straight as a 

 fine ; if near, you hear the rush of his wings ; his 

 hadow hurtles across the fields, and in an instant 



