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THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS. 
The “‘ soaring of birds,” in my estimation, is 
effected by more than balance of wings, tail 
and feathers. It is effected more or less, at 
times, by the “spiral ringing flight.” This is 
hardly perceptible in space, but, nevertheless, 
takes place, more or less. There must be some 
slight ringing, to keep the sails full of air or 
wind, writes a correspondent of Land and 
Water. In the case of falcons following the 
heron, we see this done at a great pace. We 
get down wind of the heronry, and wait the re- 
turn of the heron coming up wind to it. We 
then loose a pair of falcons, and the sport com- 
mences when we see the heron returning. 
Having singled out one, the heron, on seeing 
the hawks, mounts at once by “ringing,” first 
having emptied its ‘‘ bread-basket ” of eels and 
frogs, which are seen coming down out of their 
unnatural element. When the heron has light- 
ened herself up she goes at great pace, having 
thus emptied her crop, and the falcons, by a 
spiral flight, at the same time ringing and 
soaring in different directions, get eventually 
above the soaring quarry, which rises between 
them, all three birds taking different directions, 
until eventually the stronger birds get above 
the heron. Without this spiral course the 
hawks could not go faster than the soaring 
heron, which in space appears simply mounting 
slowly, but in reality is going up at great pace. 
Distance and pace are two impossible problems 
to solve overhead in an uninterrupted sky 
where there is nothing to give the eye a chance 
of guessing what movement, if slight, a bird is 
making. The motion, unless in such a case as 
the chase of the heron, being very frequently 
in various birds, such as kestrels, eagles, etc., 
not distinguishable, with the exception of the 
ringing flight, which is always mounting or 
circling to keep the wings full of wind to sail, 
whatever pace they require to go. When the 
hawks get above the heron sufficiently high to 
strike, having got their wind, the first one 
ready strikes down at her at the rate of 150 
miles an hour, it high enough ; but if not high 
enough, the pace is not so fast, and, according 
to powers of mounting, the value of the stoop 
is seen; for when the first hawk misses, the 
other one is mounting to have its turn, and it 
NATURE'S REALM. 
is generally the best hawk that takes its time, 
and does not strike until in perfect command 
of the flight. But many a time in hawking, 
“light herons” (that is, herons going out to 
feed), the hawks have to stoop and stoop, and 
often get beaten, unless the country is open, 
with no trees or water in the way. The soar- 
ing motion is at times, therefore, impossible to 
detect when birds are amusing themselves, but, 
nevertheless, it is there, although not perceived 
at times; and at other times the slightest use 
of the turn of the wing upward is only seen 
with the strongest glass when the bird is “ ring- 
ing slowly ’ in a ‘‘spiral flight.” Without some 
such ringing motion a bird would not do more 
than a kite without a string to hold it steady; it 
would disappear with the wind, unless able to 
keep itself ‘‘ cutting” the wind by the most sci- 
entific steering we have ever seen, without the 
smallest perceptible jerk or motion. 
SHOWERS OF FISHES. 
In a back number of the American Angler 
(I forget the date) I saw an article in regard to 
showers of fish that have been seen to fall from 
the clouds, or somewhere from the upper re- 
gions. The writer gave his theories as to how 
the fish became thus elevated, one of which 
was that the eggs were carried there on the 
wings of birds and hatched out in the upper 
strata of the atmosphere. I never saw one 
of these remarkable phenomena, but I have 
seen the ground literally covered with angle 
worms after a shower, and heard people say 
that they rained down from the clouds, but if 
they had observed closely they would have 
seen them coming from the ground. Now an 
angle worm and a fish are not closely related 
only when the fish has the worm in its mouth. 
I am so sure that angle worms do net rain 
down that I will venture to make the assertion 
that they do nothing of the kind. Would it not 
be a much more plausible theory that these 
fish were sucked up in a waterspout from some 
body of water and carried along by the wind 
until deposited somewhere on the land. As to 
their being, hatched in unknown space above 
looks very absurd. XX. 
