Hawks 



are most frequently misapplied. Being both common 

 species whose habits render them easily observed, they 

 are often unjustly made to suffer for the sins of their bird- 

 killing relatives of the genus Accipiter [sharp-shinned and 

 Cooper's hawk]. 



CHAPMAN. Handbook of Birds. 21 



It can be readily proved that it [the red-tailed hawk 

 is far more beneficial than otherwise, and really deserves 

 protection, instead of having a bounty placed on its head, 



as has been the case in several states Of 



two hundred and twenty stomachs of the red-shouldered 

 hawk examined .... only three contained remains of 



poultry So long as there is a grasshopper or a 



meadow mouse to eat, the sparrow hawk will let feathered 

 prey alone; but these failing, it is a past-master in dropping 

 like a thunder-bolt upon .... small birds found on 

 the ground in thickets and the borders of woods. But 

 it does not eat the farmer's broilers: the little sharp- 

 shinned and the Cooper's hawk attend to them. 



NELTJE BLANCHAN. Birds That Hunt and Are Hunted. 24 



Saw a large hawk circling over a pine wood 



Traveling ever by wider circles, what a symbol of the 

 thoughts; now soaring, now descending, taking larger and 

 larger circles, or smaller and smaller. It flies not directly 

 whither it is bound, but advances by circles, like a courtier 



of the skies The poetry of motion, not as 



preferring one place to another, but enjoying each as 

 long as possible, most gracefully thus surveying new scenes, 

 and revisiting the old. 



THOREAU. Autumn. 14 



75 



