38 OUR BACKDOOR NEIGHBORS 



upward in wide circles on a warm summer 

 afternoon. As they would wheel in the air, the 

 rich reddish brown color of the upper side of 

 the tail feathers could be plainly seen. This 

 marking, together with the narrow white tip 

 and faint black band, is very conspicuous with 

 the birds, and from it they get their name. 



They would mount high, and then higher, 

 until it fairly made the man and the boy who 

 were watching dizzy to contemplate the 

 height to which they had attained. When they 

 had finally disappeared from sight the Natu- 

 ralist would turn to the boy with some remark 

 about the big birds and to regret that with the 

 thirteen guns constantly loaded and the hun- 

 dreds of other guns all over the State, the last 

 big birds could soon be expected to disappear 

 from the Iowa sky. 



As the time drew near when the young birds 

 would leave the nest, he felt some anxiety as 

 to their fate when first they should try their 

 wings, but he was unprepared for what hap- 

 pened. Since the Naturalist had spent more 

 than eight weeks in observing the birds, and 

 during all that time they had not departed 

 from the paths of rectitude, he had come to 

 believe that the crimes charged to the Red- 



