52 Bird - Lore
proved to be a large white chicken, decapitated and eviscerated,—and brought it to the young ones Their crops were always full. and we always found fresh feathers on the ledge. Twice or thrice they were pigeon feathers, and once those of a brown hen or chicken. The whole tale of species whose feathers I have found on this bill of pirates is as fol- lows: Grebe (Dabchick) (not quite surely identified), Wood Duck (also not quite surely), Ruffed Grouse, hen, pigeon (their staple food), Night- hawk. Kingfisher, Blue Jay, Flicker (commonest after pigeon), Sparrow (not specifically identified) and Robin,
One thing more about these Hawks must be recounted—my wonder- fully close View of the father, which occurred in this wise: I was sitting, very quiet, on the ground above and just out of sight of the youngsters, who had entirely ceased their noise, Suddenly they began ‘chirruping,’ in a new and peculiar way, which I at once guessed must be an eager and fearless greeting to one of the parents. But the seconds passed. and no Hawk appeared overhead, while the chirruping continued unabated~ Crawling to the edge and peeping over, I rested my astonished and de- lighted eyes, at the short range of about ten feet, on the neat blue head of the male, who had quietly sailedup from below, bringing provender. An attempt to photograph him scared him away, but not before I had had a splendid view of him, sitting fully exposed on the outer side of the ledge. When he flew, he carried the quarry with him! Cool—headed but mistaken daddy! He was afraid we would steal it,—and how different were our real habits and intentionsl We had fed the youngsters beef (which they devoured greetiin enough off the end of a stick, when it was shoved almost into their blathering mouths), and we had even brought them from a distant ledge the food captured by their mother!
My last visit to the aery was made on June 5. The young then showed almost as much brown as white, and had well-developed, banded tails. One of my companions saw them about a week later, and reported them as very nearly ready to fly.
And now for a few words of dissertation. In spite of the noble classical associations which cling to the Peregrine, and its unquestioned preeminence among the raptores, this bird is now officially ‘black-balled‘ in America, and people are urged to destroy it at every opportunity,—according to the narrow, strictly utilitarian creed that all animals which detract in any degree from man’s commercial gains must be exterminated. But does it not rather seem as if a bird of such vast interest to the naturalists, the poets, and all literate persons and lovers of life in general, ought to be carefully preserved, as an element of the intrinsic natural beauty of the country? We cannot blame the poor farmer for killing the individual Hawk that devastares his dove-cote; but this is very different from waging war upon the species at large. And, if only it could be arranged, how
