116 TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISOENCBS. 



exceedingly swift when after spar- 

 rows or other birds; and it al- 

 ways is seen alighting on the 

 highest top of a tree, with prefer- 

 ence a mesquite tree. Even in 

 towns these hawks are quite often 

 seen in and around gardens and 

 parks, and the writer remembers 

 an instance where one of these ma- 

 rauders killed some of our best 

 canary birds in a cage. This hap- 

 pened a few years ago, whilst in 

 my private office on East Com- 

 merce street (now the "Menger 



floor or floating around the last 

 cage, and as soon as the hawk 

 noticed my approach it swiftly 

 flew away with some remnants of 

 the canary bird in its claws. 



"With these olden days recollec- 

 tions, I am reminded again of the 

 old Toudouse collection of native 

 Texas animals once roaming about 

 the jungles and prairie plains 

 close to San Antonio and nowa- 

 days nearly extinct. I had a num- 

 ber of original photo-plates pre-' 



Eagle With a Rattlesnake in Its Beak 



Brothers apartments"), "Whilst 

 reading, I heard a loud commotion 

 and fluttering noise around the 

 bird cages on the adjoining front 

 gallery, and opening the door lead- 

 ing to the gallery, a perplexing 

 sight presented itself : in one of the 

 cages two canary birds were lying 

 dead in the cage — headless; and 

 on the other cage a sparrow hawk 

 was seen in the act of having 

 grabbed the single canary with its 

 claws and pulling it through the 

 wired cage. Many golden-yellow 

 feathers were scattered on the 



pared at the romantic little Tou- 

 douse villa at Losoya, south of 

 San Antonio, but they are nearly 

 all lost or loaned away, many years 

 ago. Among these photos one is 

 left, which is reproduced in this 

 Field issue; a large prairie eagle 

 with a captured huge rattle snake, 

 both of which Mr. Toudouse had 

 encountered and shot in the midst 

 of a wilderness of cactus jungles 

 and brush, close to the old Tudrich 

 "Laguna de los Patos" called 

 Mitchell 's Lake. Wild animals of 

 nearly all types typical tO' our 



