Fear tn Birds. 97 



peregrine has 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 tip 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 occasionally, 

 when he drops lower than usual, rising to a sharp 

 scream of terror. 



Sometimes when I have been riding over marshy 



