48 Bird - Lore 



tried to reach from above. The Hawks had alreadj' desisted from their attack 

 and taken up their old position on the other cHff; but when I emerged 

 from a thicket, on the side of a chasm, and crawled hopefully out along the 

 sloping ledge to the last bit of safe ground in the direction of the white 

 stain, the female, — blue-backed and ruddy -breasted and superbly marked, 

 with tremendous yellow feet, flight of transcendent force and swiftness, and 

 ear-splitting, savage, raucous, incessant cries, — dashed across and assailed 

 me more violently than ever. She once came so near that I felt the wind 

 of her great wings on my face. But this sortie was as brief as it was bold, 

 and the bird soon rejoined her impassive mate on the distant cliff, leaving 

 me to grapple with the problem of reaching the suspected ledge below me. 

 Clutching a dead hemlock sapling which stood on the ultimate verge, I 

 leaned far out over emptiness (two hundred feet, more or less, above the 

 foot-hill field). There, seven feet below me, and off to one side, was the 

 dribbled bottom of the guano-heap. The nest, if nest there was, could 

 not be seen because of a projecting rock. Having no rope, I stripped ofif 

 my shirt and undershirt, twisted them together, tied one end to the base of 

 the hemlock, and, holding on for dear life, leaned out still further. But 

 lean and peer as I might, the back part of the cranny remained hidden, and 

 nothing could be seen of the nest. Sorely tantalized, I retreated, made a 

 long, laborious circuit through vilely dense brush and brambles, which con- 

 cealed numberless jagged rocks and treacherous holes, and climbed to the 

 highest accessible point below the guano-mark. But the nest was no 

 more visible from below than from above, — projecting rocks still cut off the 

 back of the crann\'^^ from my view. So, though the female's furious attack 

 had firmly convinced me that I had found the nest, I gave up trying to 

 reach it, for the time, planning to return with a rope and a companion. 

 Before leaving the hill, however, I went over to investigate the other high 

 cliff, where the Hawks spent most of their time. They were sitting there 

 as I approached the verge from above, and suddenly took wing, together, and 

 shot past me, with a great roar of vibrating quill-feathers, at such astound- 

 ing speed that 1 did not manage fairly to focus my eyes upon them. They 

 appeared as two bow-bent, lightning-rapid streaks, and disappeared over 

 the hill's further rim almost before my brain had interpreted the imperfect 

 message from my frustrated eyes. Again, a few minutes later, I saw beau- 

 tiful speed -feats performed by the male, as he and his mate were gyrating 

 high over the cliffs. The\ were floating about in the bright, keen air, 

 with the easy indolence that marks superlative power at rest; when, of a 

 sudden, the male made a sharper wing-movement, and was two hundred 

 yards away from his mate in the merest twinkling of an eye. Veering, he 

 then returned to her with even more dizzying swiftness; and this perfor- 

 mance was repeated several times. His wings always ' sang ' on the back- 

 ward course, but never when he was going away. This, and the greater 



