164 Twelve Months With 



"* * * Ever, while intent 

 On tracing and retracing that large round, 

 Their jubilant activity evolves 

 Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro, 

 Upward and downward, progress intricate 

 Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed 

 Their indefatigable flight. 'Tis done — 

 Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased; 

 But lo ! the vanished company again 

 Ascending. * * *" 



This flight or migrating in loose flock formation 

 continued for nearly half a day, long after I had 

 continued to watch the birds. Most of them were 

 flying perhaps 500 or 600 feet high, but occasion- 

 ally one was seen flying low "with watchful 

 measuring eye." 



These large hawks are much too dignified to 

 migrate in compact and hurried fashion, after the 

 manner of the ducks. It is quite in keeping with 

 their stately dignity gracefully to soar about, inde- 

 pendently of the movements of their fellows, and 

 yet, with a seeming reluctance born of a proud 

 spirit, accepting each other's society, because they 

 all were moved, and therefore more or less 

 attracted to each other by the common impulse to 

 migrate. Because of this loose flock method of 

 migration of the hawks, it is easy to overlook the 

 flight and to see one or two hawks only, but at this 

 season of the year these flights of hawks southward 

 may often be seen, and they have been known to 

 continue for ten or twelve hours. 



