92 BIRDS* EGGS 



desirous of possessing a young hawk. He 

 discovered that a sparrow hawk had built in 

 a tree which grew out of the face of an old 

 quarry. The tree was an ash, smooth of 

 stem, and absolutely without branches for 

 over twenty feet. Its roots were some 

 distance down the rock face, and the trunk 

 overhung the void beneath, at least sixty feet 

 from the ground. 



A slip meant death. But the boy was not 

 to be daunted. He was unable to visit the 

 spot except on Saturdays, when the school 

 had a whole holiday. The first Saturday on 

 which he managed to climb to the nest, he 

 found four eggs. Next week he repeated his 

 perilous passage and found young birds. 

 Another week he returned and found the 

 birds well grown, but still too young for 

 hand-feeding. By another week they might 

 have flown. To prevent this, he tied the legs 

 of the young birds to the edge of the nest, in 

 order that they might not escape, and yet 

 would be fed by the parent birds. On the 

 fourth Saturday he went back and dis- 

 covered that two of the birds were dead, 

 but the other pair were sufficiently developed 



