THE MENACE FROM ABOVE 79 



tion. It was probably a Cooper's hawk. But I 

 could see the four crows fly over him, and dart down 

 every few feet to take a peck at his head. Mean- 

 while the crows which remained behind kept up an 

 incessant racket in the pines. The hawk made no 

 effort to fight back, nor did he even seem greatly 

 annoyed. Without any attempt to dodge or change 

 his line of flight, he gradually accelerated his speed, 

 swung down wind, and disappeared, the four crows 

 being left astern after about a mile. Just what he 

 had done to annoy them I cannot say. He may 

 have been hungry and attacked one. But it doesn't 

 pay to attack a crow. E pluribus unum is their 

 motto. Literally thousands of crows will gather in 

 less than two hours to attack a great horned owl 

 which has killed one of their number. As a rule, 

 I doubt if the hawks and owls trouble the crows very 

 much, even though their nests are so similarly 

 placed in the tops of the forest trees. 



I had hardly finished watching this little battle 

 over the pines when, on looking upward, I saw a 

 big red-tailed hawk (the large bird commonly and 

 mistakenly called a "hen-hawk") sailing far aloft on 

 almost motionless pinions. It is a beautiful flight, 

 this of the red-tailed hawk, only exceeded in con- 

 summate ease, perhaps, by the turkey buzzard of 

 the South, which is undoubtedly the king of aero- 

 nauts. He was sailing in great circles, apparently 

 aimless, and it seemed incredible that from such a 

 height he could see his prey on the earth below, even 

 prey as large as a rabbit, not to mention mice, which 

 are the chief staple of his diet. Yet he was prob- 

 ably intently watching the earth beneath, as his 



