188 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



air last April. Standing beside a little grove, on a rocky 

 hillside, I heard crows cawing near by, and then a sound 

 like great flies buzzing, which I really attributed, for a mo- 

 ment, to some early insect. Turning, I saw two crows 

 flapping their heavy wings among the trees, and observed 

 that they were teasing a hawk about as large as themselves, 

 which was also on the wing. 



11. Presently all three had risen above the branches, 

 and were circling higher and higher in a slow spiral. The 

 crows kept constantly swooping at their enemy, with the 

 same angry buzz, one of the two taking decidedly the lead. 

 They seldom struck at him with their beaks, but kept lum- 

 bering against him, and flapping him with their wings, as 

 if in a fruitless effort to capsize him, while the hawk kept 

 carelessly eluding the assaults, now inclining on one side, 

 now on the other, with a stately grace, never retaliating, 

 but seeming rather to enjoy the novel amusement, as if it 

 were a skirmish in balloons. During all this, indeed, he 

 scarcely seemed once to wave his wings ; yet he soared 

 steadily aloft, till the crows refused to follow, though al- 

 ready higher than I ever saw crows before, dim against the 

 fleecy sky ; then the hawk flew northward, but soon after 

 he sailed over us once again, with loud, scornful chirr, 

 and they only cawed, and left him undisturbed. 



Atlantic Monthly. 



BIRDS IN AUTUMN. 



1. After July, most of our birds grow silent, and, but 

 for the insects, August would be almost the stillest month 

 in the year — stiller than the winter, when the woods are 

 often vocal with the crow, the jay, and the chickadee. 

 But with patient attention one may hear, even far into 

 the autumn, the accustomed notes. As I sat in my boat, 



