The Bay of the Band 
until she had rolled them back. The wonder is that 
they ever hatched. 
But they had, and what they hatched was another 
wonder. It was a right instinct which led the mother 
to seek the middle of the Bear Swamp and there hide 
her young ina hollow log. My sense of the fitness 
of things should have equaled hers, certainly, and 
I should have allowed her the privacy of the swamp. 
It was unfair of me and rude. Nature never intended 
a young buzzard for any eye but its mother’s, and 
she hates the sight of it. Elsewhere I have told of 
a buzzard that devoured her eggs at the approach 
of an enemy, so delicately balanced are her unnamable 
appetites and her maternal affections! 
The two freaks in the log must have been three 
weeks old, I should say, the larger weighing about 
four pounds, They were covered, as young owls are, 
with deep, snow-white down, out of which protruded 
their legs, long, black, scaly, snaky legs. They stood 
braced on these, their receding heads drawn back, 
their shoulders thrust forward, their bodies humped 
between the featherless wings like challenging tom- 
cats. 
In order toexamine them, I crawled into the den; — 
198 
