Fear in Birds. 97 



jjeregrine lias been observed, Baird says, capturing 

 birds, only to kill and drop them. Many of the 

 Felidse, we know, evince a similar habit ; only these 

 prolong their pleasure by practising a more refined 

 and deliberate cruelty. 



The sudden appearance overhead of this hawk 

 produces an effect wonderful to witness. I have 

 frequently seen all the inhabitants of a marsh 

 struck with panic, acting as if demented, and sud- 

 denly grown careless to all other dangers ; and on 

 such occasions I have looked up confident of seeing 

 the sharp-winged death suspended above them in 

 the sky. All birds that happen to be on the wing 

 drop down as if shot into the reeds or water ; ducks 

 away from the margin stretch out their necks 

 horizontally and drag their bodies, as if wounded, 

 into closer cover; not one bird is found bold 

 enough to rise up and wheel about the marauder — 

 a usual proceeding in the case of other hawks ; 

 while, at every sudden stoop the falcon makes, 

 threatening to dash down on his prey, a low cry of 

 terror rises from the birds beneath ; a sound ex- 

 pressive of an emotion so contagious that it quickly 

 runs like a murmur all over the marsh, as if a 

 gust of wind had swept moaning through the 

 rushes. As long as the falcon hangs overhead, 

 always at a height of about forty yards, threatening 

 at intervals to dash down, this murmuring sound, 

 made up of many hundreds of individual cries, is 

 heard swelling and dying away, and occasionallv, 

 when he drops lower than usual, rising to a sharp 

 scream of terror. 



Sometimes when I have been riding over marshy 



