2 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
butterflies are wheeling in uncertain flight over the 
summit. It is only necessary to raise the head a little 
way, and the cool breeze refreshes the cheek—cool at 
this height while the plains beneath glow under the 
heat. 
Presently a small swift shadow passes across—it 
is that of a hawk flying. low over the hill. He skirts 
it for some distance, and then shoots out into the air, 
comes back half-way, and hangs over the fallow below, 
where there is a small rick. His wings vibrate, 
striking the air downwards, and only slightly back- 
wards, the tail depressed counteracting the inclination 
to glide forwards for awhile. In a few moments he 
slips, as it were, from his balance, but brings himself 
up again in a few yards, turning a curve so as to still 
hover above the rick. If he espies a tempting morsel 
he drops like a stone, and alights on a spot almost 
exactly below him—a power which few birds seem to 
possess. Most of them approach the ground gradu- 
ally, the plane of their flight sloping slowly to the 
earth, and the angle decreasing every moment till it 
becomes parallel, when they have only to drop their 
legs, shut their wings, and, as it were, stand upright 
in the air to find themselves safe on the sward. By 
that time their original impetus has diminished, and 
they feel no shock from the cessation of motion. The 
hawk, on the contrary, seems to descend nearly in a 
perpendicular line. 
The lark does the same, and often from a still 
