210 HILLS AND LAKES. 



vacancy in that brood of ducks, yet it was a sight I 

 should have been loath to miss. It was all done in 

 an instant. There was no pause in his flight ; as the 

 eagle seized his prey he glanced upwards and wheeled 

 in the air with wings apparently unmoved, and then 

 flew off to devour it. 



" There, Squire, I have seen that thing done a 

 hundred times," said Tucker. " That eagle has been 

 watchin' that brood of ducks, may be an hour, and 

 his mind was made up which one he'd take before he 

 started from his perch. He don't shoot at random, 

 and don't often miss his mark. I've often thought it 

 must take a great deal of trainin' to do it. But I sup- 

 pose it's nater or instinct as you call it, and old Pete 

 Meigs always said the eagle's first stoop is as sure as 

 his hundredth or his thousandth." 



We waited a long time for the frightened water-fowl 

 to come from their hiding places. At length we saw 

 the old one steal cautiously out from among the 

 reeds, and turn up first one eye and then the other, 

 as if to see that her enemy was gone. She seemed to 

 become satisfied that the danger was over, and in 

 answer to her low call her little ones, one after an- 

 other, gathered around her. She went swimming and 



