Song Birds and Water Fowl 



by any other species of the race. They admir- 

 ably picture forth the heroic side of villainy ; 

 they are the Attilas, the Neros, the Borgias 

 of bird-history. Neither refined, nor, in the 

 usual sense, beautiful, they strikingly possess 

 the very commanding attribute of rugged and 

 pronounced personality ; and this rare quality 

 is always a strong rival of both beauty and 

 goodness for the admiration of mankind. Even 

 the more ignoble vulture, kite, and buzzard, 

 the very type of carrion scavengers though they 

 be, are not entirely powerless to elicit a certain 

 quality of lofty approbation ; while hawks and 

 eagles, by a life as taciturn and solitary, and 

 by a certain nobility of form, combined with 

 those impressive evolutions in the air which 

 cannot fail to elevate the mind, are qualified to 

 stimulate the thoughts of the observer to an in- 

 tense degree. The distant and the silent are 

 alike in always being strangely fascinating to 

 the human mind ; and these qualities are com- 

 bined in the birds of prey. The imagination 

 plays most untiringly around the vague and 

 enigmatical. 



As I stood by the Hudson River, watching 

 a large flock of wild ducks, called buffle-heads, 

 that frequent all our larger streams in the win- 

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