26 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
and soared away, and as she passed out of sight they 
were still cawing on her trail. 
Tf the hawk had been one of the swift Accipiters, 
such as the gray goshawk or the Cooper’s hawk, 
or any of the falcons, no crow would have ventured to 
take any liberties. One of my friends, who collects 
bird’s eggs instead of bird-notes, was once attempt- 
ing feloniously to break and enter the home of a 
duck-hawk which was highly regarded in the com- 
munity — about two hundred feet highly in fact. 
As my friend was swinging back and forth on a rope 
in front of the perpendicular cliff, said duck-hawk 
dashed at him at the rate of some ninety miles per 
hour. Being scared off by a blank cartridge, the en- 
raged falcon towered. A passing crow flapping 
through the air made a peck at the hawk as it shot 
past. That was one of the last and most unfortunate 
acts in that crow’s whole life. The duck-hawk was 
fairly aching with the desire to attack someone or 
something which was not protected by thunder and 
lightning. With one flash of its wings it shot under 
that misguided crow, and, turning on its back in 
mid-air, slashed it with six talons like sharpened steel. 
The crow dropped, a dead mass of black and blood, 
to the brow of the cliff below. 
Finally we reached the tall, stone chimney — all 
that is left of some long-forgotten house, which 
marks the entrance to old Darby Road, which was 
opened in 1701. At that point Wild-Folk Land 
begins. The hurrying feet of more than two centur- 
ies have sunk the road some ten feet below its banks, 
