BIRDS OF THE WEST 129 



watching the curved beaks of the eaglets when I heard a rush of 

 wings like the storm-wind and a snap of the old eagle's beak 

 that was as loud as the crack of a pistol. I had seen him circling 

 a mile or more above me but I did not dream that his eagle eye 

 was keeping watch over that little speck below. I clutched the 

 harder to the walls of the precipice and began my retreat expect- 

 ing every minute to hear the whirlwind of those mighty wings 

 again or to have my brains hanging from that hooked beak. 



Eagles are getting scarcer every year. They are now found 

 only in the mountains and unsettled regions. Ranchmen shoot 

 them because they steal their lambs and Indians want their feathers 

 for adornment. Really they do but little harm, living mostly on 

 prairie chickens, prairie dogs and smaller mammals. We can 

 spare a few lambs to preserve the noblest of our birds. I fear 

 that modern methods of civilization would exterminate all forms 

 of life except what can be eaten. Think of a world of chickens 

 and geese and beeves and hogs and men! Why not save a few 

 things for sentiment's sake? 



HAWKS. 



There are three kinds of hawks that may as well be killed as 

 not. You may tell them by the fact that they wear mostly blue 

 feathers. They a^re the sharp-shinned hawk, called the little 

 blue darter, and ten inches in length, Cooper's hawk or big 

 blue darter sixteen inches in length, and the goshawk or blue hen 

 hawk, twenty-two inches long. Add two inches to each of the 

 above and you will get the length of the females. 



This trio of villains are pirates of the high winds. The 

 domestic chickens that they eat are of little consequence in com- 

 parison with the large n.umber of useful song and game birds 

 whose hearts are actually pierced by their vicious claws and 

 whose throats are cut by their murderous beaks. Swift of wing 

 so that ducks going at one hundred miles an hour can be over- 

 taken and the most artful of dodgers, a trick learned from chas- 

 ing smaller birds, there is little chance of escape for bird or beast 

 that starts on the race for life. 



Such birds never sing, they give yells as piercing as their 

 claws. Like many little boys ' ' they should be seen but not heard, ' ' 

 and they should be seen only long enough to permit a gun to be 



