HAWKS. 59

the ermine of winter stained with the blood of a rabbit or the bright plumes of a jay where this marauder has had his meal.

The Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Buzzards are the Hen Hawks of Summer. They nest with us, building their eyries in the summits of lofty trees, and occupying the same nest for a succession of years. It is the Red—tailed Bu2< zard that performs those wonderful aerial feats of wheeling round in great circles on motionless wings, steady as the revolution of a planet, but ascending with each revolve, till at length he is lost in the depth of the summer sky.

The Golden Eagle and the Bald Eagle visit us sometimes, and the Osprey pursues his sum- mer fishing along our well-stored coasts.

The Peregrine Falcon (Fa/a) paurgrizzzzs) is the most powerful and beautiful of our resident hawks, noted alike in Europe and America. It builds its eyrie in the lonely forest summits, and makes its forays along the wild rocky coasts where fleets of ducks and guillemots swarm the wave. Here we may see him rush, like a plumed bolt, from the cliffs, sweep up his quarry from the gleam—

ing wave and bear it off to his home on the