THE WINDHOVER HAWK. 257 



trouble to step in. I am a match for old Sally now, 

 and she ca'nt do me any more harm, so long as the 

 wiggin branches hang in the place where I have 

 nailed them. My poor cow will get well in spite of 

 her." Alas ! thought I to myself, as the deluded 

 man was finishing his story, how much there is yet 

 to be done in our part of the country by the school- 

 master of the nineteenth century ! 



NOTES ON THE HABITS OF THE WINDHOVER 

 HAWK. 



NOTHING can be more unfortunate for a man, than 

 to bear a strong resemblance to another who is 

 notorious for his evil deeds. The public eye marks 

 him as he passes on, and tacitly condemns him for 

 misdemeanors of which he is, probably, as inno- 

 cent as the lamb which gambols on the lawn. This 

 may be applied with great truth to the windhover 

 hawk. He is perpetually confounded with the spar- 

 row-hawk, and too often doomed to suffer for the 

 predatory attacks of that bird on the property of 

 man. But, when your gun has brought the poor 

 windhover to the ground, look, I pray you, into the 

 contents of his stomach; you will find nothing there 

 to show that his life ought to have been forfeited. 

 On the contrary, the remnants of the beetle and the 

 field mouse which will attract your notice, prove 

 indisputably, that his visits to your farm have been 

 of real service to it. 



s 



