252 BIRD- LAND ECHOES. 



at the wide expanse of snow-clad meadow. No ice- 

 bound continent could have been more monotonous 

 I will not say dreary. The first glance reveals 

 only the general outline, and if this be forbidding 

 we are apt all too quickly to turn away. For the 

 moment I saw nothing but snow, and this I could 

 see anywhere to-day. But what is that dark object 

 by the willow hedge ? It moves as erratically as a 

 ghost, and has no fixed shape. I look with shaded 

 eyes and follow it to and fro, to find it is a shadow, 

 and the bird that casts it is betwixt the meadow and 

 the sun. So the meadows, then, had their comple- 

 ment of life. Ah, how little we see, even when 

 fully bent upon seeing ! The shadow was of a 

 noble black hawk ; soon it came sailing into view, 

 and not without a purpose did it skirt the broad 

 expanse where the willows grew. Not too near, for 

 that would frighten all the small deer that he sought. 

 There was not a willow-tree in sight but had a 

 mouse's nest at its base, and every mouse would be 

 curious to-day concerning the weather, and would 

 creep from the warm nest in the ground up the tree- 

 trunk, that it might have a sun-bath. Cunning black 

 hawk ! Unfortunate meadow-mice ! And how the 

 tree-sparrows pitch and tumble out of the way as 

 the huge hawk swoops near by ! He is not after 

 them, but this they do not know ; and so I miss 

 their merry chatter when the willow hedge is reached, 

 unless indeed they come back, for confidence re- 

 turns when enemies are out of sight. Sparrows 

 place no sentinels, and so are easily surprised. Evo- 



