A FEW FEATHERED FIENDS. 225 



where, with feathers all outstanding, they appeared 

 to be almost twice their real size. At such a time 

 they are apt to be stupid and easy of approach, 

 which suggests that their senses have been dulled by 

 hunger, and then they are not averse to a chicken 

 diet, but full-grown hens can generally fight them 

 off! Why do they always strike at them and not 

 molest the roosters ? Is this true ? It is a common 

 impression in my neighborhood and borne out by 

 what I have noticed, which, however, is more likely 

 to be mere coincidence than evidence. 



The peak of a hay-stack is a favorite outlook with 

 them when the ground is covered with snow and 

 only bushes and fence-posts vary the landscape. I 

 have seen one of these hawks dust away the snow 

 with its wings and crouch down on the hay so as 

 to be almost undistinguishable from it. Was this 

 done for warmth? As every stack has a thriving 

 colony of mice at its base, and as their tracks show 

 that these creatures come out at times, may there 

 not be a reason for the hawk's resting-place other 

 than that it is comfortable ? 



There is another large hawk that is always a winter 

 visitor, but which, my records show, some thirty 

 years ago used to come earlier and stay later than it 

 does now. Locally these birds are known as marsh- 

 hawks, because on their arrival, as an old gunner 

 told me, " they put for the meadows and gather the 

 rail-birds that couldn't skip after the first frost," 

 which information comprises a whole chapter of 

 local ornithology in very few words. I have always 

 p 



