hawk’s nest. 
69 
the Platte. These streams are bordered at inter- 
vals by cotton-wood trees of great age and size ; 
and far up above one of them they saw a hawk, 
circling. After watching its motions for some 
time, she became convinced its nest was secreted 
in one of the largest of the trees, and upon ex- 
amination, discovered it, hidden among the aspen- 
like foliage of its highest branches. 
Science has at present more interest in the 
eggs and young of animals than in those that are 
mature, and young hawks of that variety were 
not to be left to try their new-fledged wings upon 
the Colorado air, if she could get possession of 
them before those wings were grown. 
But how to get possession — that was a 
problem ! 
The lower limbs of the tree were at quite a 
distance from the ground, and its trunk was large 
and comparatively smooth. 
Mr. Maxwell was consulted. He coolly af- 
firmed “ that, under the circumstances, in the 
absence of ladders, balloons or other means of 
ascension, he didn’t consider it an open question. 
There was only one way, and that was, to climb 
for them. He used to be expert in that business 
in the days before he was too old to be whipped 
for robbing birds’ nests ; and if she wished him 
to return to that reprehensible practice, he would 
make the attempt ! ” 
