186 FOREST CREATURES. 



it never once entered my head to fire. The extreme 

 cunning of the creature in letting- himself fall in this 

 way completely stupefied me. " If he does so always," 

 then I thought, " I do not know how I am to hit him.'' 

 Just after five o'clock I heard ao-ain the same rushins: 

 sound, and again, before I could even think of firing, 

 he had dropped down and vanished in the deep; 

 flinging food to his young in the nest, and securing 

 himself against the chance of danger just in the same 

 way as he had done in the forenoon. This time, 

 however, I remarked that, while with his talons he 

 flung the food in the eyrie, he simultaneously flapped 

 twice very quickly with his wings, there being so little 

 room for him while thus close to the rock, and then, 

 and then only, dropped downwards through the air. 

 So I determined should he do the same to-morrow, to 

 take my chance, and fire just at this instant of time : 

 short enough, it is true ; but to hit him at any other 

 moment seemed to me an impossibility. That he 

 would fly into his eyrie was not at all likely, for 

 he knew very well why he proceeded thus and not 

 otherwise. This morning I rose at one and returned 

 home at seven in the evening ; sixteen whole hours, 

 fourteen of which I spent sitting on the same spot ; a 

 task for which a certain amount of j^atience is indis- 

 pensable. 



June 20th. — Went again at half-past one to myi3lace 



