THE MARSH DWELLERS 165 
about eight inches across and three inches deep, 
made of coarse grasses ringed around with rushes. 
Beneath the nest was a well-packed platform several 
inches thick. I think that this was a natural pile 
of rushes pressed down by the bird. There, under 
the open sky, were five large eggs of a dirty bluish- 
white, nearly ready to hatch. They were the size of 
a small hen’s egg. The very second I caught sight of 
the nest the mother hawk came dashing through the 
air, from some unseen perch where she had been 
watching me with her telescopic eyes. Fifty feet 
away, she folded her wings and dived at my head, 
falling through the air like astone. With her fierce 
unflinching eyes, half-open beak, and outspread claws, 
she looked dangerous. Ten feet away, however, 
she swooped up and circled off in ever-widening rings, 
screaming mournfully. Beside the nest was one 
barred tail-feather. 
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own 
And a certain use in the world no doubt, 
Yet a hand’s-breadth of it shines alone 
’Mid the blank miles round about: 
For there I picked up on the heather 
And there I put inside my breast 
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather! 
Well, I forget the rest. 
Something of this we felt as we lingered over this 
long-sought nest, making notes and photographs — 
our way of collecting. 
