146 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIKDS 



feet above their heads, wish to get nearer and hold it 

 in their hands, perchance, not realizing that they can 

 see it best at this distance, better now, perhaps, than 

 ever they will again. What is an eagle in captivity, 

 screaming in a courtyard? I am not the wiser respect- 

 ing eagles for having seen one there. I do not wish to 

 know the length of its entrails. 



How neat and all compact this hawk ! Its wings and 

 body are all one piece, the wings apparently the greater 

 part, while its body is a mere fullness or protuberance 

 between its wings, an inconspicuous pouch hung there. 

 It suggests no insatiable maw, no corpulence, but looks 

 like a larger moth, with little body in proportion to its 

 wings, its body naturally more etherealized as it soars 

 higher. 



These hawks, as usual, begin to be common about the 

 first of March, showing that they were returning from 

 their winter quarters. 



April 22, 1860. See now hen-hawks, a pair, soaring 

 high as for pleasure, circling ever further and further 

 away, as if it were midsummer. The peculiar flight of 

 a hawk thus fetches the year about. I do not see it soar 

 in this serene and leisurely manner very early in the 

 season, methinks. 



[,See also under Crow, p. 241; General and Miscel- 

 laneous, p. 408.] 



ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK 



March 29, 1858. As I sit two thirds the way up the 

 sunny side of the pine hill, looking over the meadows, 

 which are now almost completely bare, the crows, by 



