A YOUNG NATURALIST. 203 



m its sharp claws, and immediately took flight. Sumichrast 

 seized his gun to punish the impudent poacher, but a fal- 

 con, about the size of a man's fist, made its appearance, and 

 describing two or three rapid circles, swooped down on the 

 kite. The latter avoided the shock and continued to rise 

 in the air, while its antagonist came almost to the ground, 

 uttering a shriek of rage. Again ascending, with extreme 

 rapidity, by an oblique flight, it a second time overtopped 

 its antagonist, and darted upon it like a flash of lightning. 

 Their wings beat together, and a few feathers came flutter- 

 ing to the ground. The prey fell from the bird's grasp, 

 followed in its fall by the falcon. The kite, conquered by 

 an enemy about one-fifth of its own size, flew round and 

 round in the air and then disappeared. The conqueror 

 standing about thirty yards from us, eyes glittering and 

 foot firmly planted on its prey, magnificent in anger and 

 daring, Sumichrast abandoned the game to it as a recom- 

 pense for its courage. The bird, not at all satisfied at be- 

 ing so close to us, buried in the body of its victim its claw r s 

 — so enormous in comparison to its own size — shook its 

 wings and rose, at first with difficulty, when, its flight be- 

 coming more easy as it ascended higher, it carried off its 

 quarry behind the trees. 



Lucien, who from the ground beneath had followed all 

 the changes and chances of this combat, soon joined us. 



" How was it that that great bird allowed itself to be 

 conquered by such a small adversary ?" he asked of Sumi- 

 chrast. 



" Because it w T as a coward." 



" But both have the same plumage, and almost the same 

 shape ; I took the small bird to be the young of the other." 



" The last is a falcon, and the other is a kite. They be- 

 long, in fact, to the same family ; but the falcon is noble 

 and courageous, while the kite is perhaps the most cow T ard- 



