AMERICAN ORNIT/fOLOGV. 8i 



AN INTERESTING CAPTIVE 



Free as the wind, that gently sways the tree tops; wild as the torrent 

 that dashes madly down the mountain side; proud as the monarch at 

 whose commands, thousand of subjects tremble; and brave as the gen- 

 eral, who leads his army to victory, a diminutive hawk gracefully, yet 

 swiftly wends his solitary way across the meadow. Not a movement 

 in the grass below escapes his keen sight, and not a rustle of a fright- 

 ened bird in the bordering shrubbery, but what his sensitive ear catches. 

 A field mouse that has inadvertantly exposed itself in scurrying from 

 one retreat to another attracts his attention. A sudden swoop, a spas- 

 modic squeak, and our hero, perched on a low stump, is greedily en- 

 gaged in an anatomical examination of the smallest of rodents. Such 

 escapades, the catching of numerous beetles and an occasional exciting 

 chase after some small bird, formed the every day events in "Pidgy's" 

 life before I knew him. 



THE CHALLENGE. 



One day in early fall, his adventurous spirit carried him too far, and a 

 watchful farmer shot him as he sailed over the hen house. His misfor- 

 tune befell him purely upon circumstantial evidence, as probably he had 

 no designs on the inmates, but he was a hawk and hail to pay the pen- 

 alty. Fortunately he was disabled in but one wing and was retained as 

 a prisoner of war, instead of being promptly dispatched as is the usual 

 custom in such cases. More likely though he was kept for mercenary 

 reasons, as the following day he came into my possession. 



