128 
THE CROWS AND THE MERLIN. 
turning in a zigzag direction, first to one side, then to the other ; 
and, while doing so, generally succeeding in administering to one or 
other of his adversaries a severe peck, which sent him away screaming. 
At last, however, a crow with more courage than the rest dashed 
against the merlin with a fury which threatened to precipitate him 
into the sea. But the gallant merlin withstood the shock, and 
delivered a thrust at his adversary as he approached and passed 
him. Then he rose considerably higher, followed only by this 
solitary opponent, who with augmented rage returned to the 
combat. " Up, up they soar, fighting as they go. They close, 
they scream, they grapple, and their feathers fly like dust. Down 
they come, locked in deadly embrace. I run to catch them both. 
But no! See! tliey pai't, mount again and again, scream, close, and, 
as before, fall, but not this time to the earth; they part and mount 
again. But 'tis now their last time ; for the hawk, rising several 
yards above his bold and venturous antagonist, rushes down upon 
him with a yell such as hawks alone, when irritated, know how to 
utter, and with such force that both fall right down into the sea, above 
which they were then fighting. I looked to see them rise again; but 
they did not. After a little splashing all was over with the crow, but 
not with tlie hawk. He was still alive, although in a very precarious 
situation, from which he made several unsuccessful attempts to rise, 
but could not. It would seem that in dealincr the death-blow to his 
tormentor he somehow or other got himself entangled; perhaps by his 
talons enterinof some of the bones of the crow, from whence he could 
not extract them. Both met with a watery grave ; for on my leaving 
the place they were both fast drifting seaward, a breeze blowing ofl" the 
land at the time, with the W'ows hovering over them and still cawing." 
The merlin, so famous in the days of chivalry, when lord and lady, 
knight and gentleman, carried the noble bird upon their wrists, is some- 
times called the stone-falcon from his preference for stony localities, 
and his habit of building his rudely-constructed nest upon the ground 
among pieces of rock. He is the smallest of the falcons, not exceeding 
eleven inches in length ; but, like other members of the Bird World, 
he makes up in spirit for what he lacks in size. 
