EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 271 
a hen-hawk, and now it settles on the topmost 
branch of a white maple, bending it down. Its 
great armed and feathered legs dangle help¬ 
lessly in the air for a moment, as if feeling for 
the perch, while its body is tipping this way 
and that. It sits there facing me some forty or 
fifty rods off, pluming itself, but keeping a good 
look-out. At this distance and in this light it 
appears to have a rusty-brown head and breast, 
and is white beneath, with rusty leg feathers 
and a tail black beneath. When it flies again, 
it is principally black varied with white, regu¬ 
lar light spots on its tail and wings beneath, 
but chiefly a conspicuous white space on the 
forward part of the neck. Also some of the 
upper side of the tail or tail-coverts is white. 
It has broad, ragged, buzzard-like wings. I 
think it must be an eagle (?) It lets itself 
down, with its legs somewhat helplessly dang¬ 
ling, as if feeling for something on the bare 
meadow, and then gradually flies away soaring 
and circling higher and higher until lost in the 
downy clouds. This lofty soaring is at least a 
grand recreation, as if it were nourishing sub¬ 
lime ideas. I should like to know why it soars 
higher and higher so, whether its thoughts are 
really turned to earth, for it seems to be more 
nobly as well as highly employed than the la¬ 
borers ditching in the meadows beneath, or any 
others of my fellow townsmen. 
