86 
BIRDS 
a haughty, imperial grace, and, occa¬ 
sionally, such daring aerial evolutions! 
With slow, leisurely movement, rarely 
vibrating his pinions, he mounts and 
mounts in an ascending spiral till he ap¬ 
pears a mere speck against the summer 
sky; then, if the mood seizes him, with 
wings half-closed, like a bent bow, he 
will cleave the air almost perpendicu¬ 
larly, as if intent on dashing himself to 
pieces against the earth; but on nearing 
the ground, he suddenly mounts again 
on broad, expanded wing, as if rebound¬ 
ing upon the air, and sails leisurely away. 
It is the sublimest feat of the season. 
One holds his breath till he sees him rise 
again. Sometimes a squirrel or bird or 
an unsuspecting barn-fowl is scathed and 
withered beneath this terrible visitation. 
If inclined to a more gradual and less 
precipitous descent, he fixes his eye on 
some distant point in the earth beneath 
him, and thither bends his course. He 
is still almost meteoric in his speed and 
boldness. You see his path down the 
heavens, straight as a line; if near, you 
hear the rush of his wings; his shadow 
