NATURE IN ACADIE. 55 



ing-place — and I arose to look upon a day of singular 

 glory, even for this land of clear skies and lovely 

 weather. 



The great charioteer of light had already mounted 

 high in the cloudless heavens when I set out, and 

 everywhere I found the splendour and the fulness that 

 go to stamp such a day as this in indelible characters 

 upon the memory. Going down to Three Mile House 

 through fields just awaking to the influence of spring, 

 and laughing with the multitude of song, I saw many 

 birds. Some swallows flew above me, one the barn 

 swallow, much like that of England but differing in 

 the arrangement of its colours. In the fields were 

 many sparrows, for Nature has endowed the New 

 World with a multitude of these, while man has added 

 yet one species more — the " house sparrow" — and that 

 one now more maligned than all the others put together. 



Down in the valley the fields terminated in a wet 

 swamp, beyond which I came into some woodlands. 

 Here it was that a small speck I had been watching 

 resolved itself into a little hawk hovering in the air, 

 sometimes dropping down a little, then rising up with a 

 circling flight and again hanging quite stationary except 

 for the slight vibration of its wings, exactly after the 

 manner of our familiar kestrel or "windhover" — to 

 which, indeed, the American sparrow-hawk, as this 

 little falcon is termed, is closely akin. It is in habits 

 and appearance almost an exact counterpart of our 

 kestrel, although much smaller — in fact, scarcely ex- 

 ceeding the size of a thrush, the female (which is the 

 larger) being not more than eleven inches in length. 

 It preys largely upon field-mice, lizards, and various 

 insects, often also upon small birds. The immortal 

 Wilson mentions having taken from the crop of one of 

 these little hawks a considerable part of the carcase 

 (including the unbroken feet and claws) of an American 

 robin, although the latter is scarcely smaller than the 

 dashing little freebooter itself ! The eggs are laid 

 within hollows and holes high up in the trunks of trees 

 or in the crevices of rocks and cliffs, but seldom is any 



