. The birds about us . h ; and in spite of all biological disquisition andlearned anatomical treatises and evolutionary phi-losophy, a bird that outflies all others and preysupon others will be held to be the better bird, and soprove by what it accomplishes that which the system-atist denies concerning him. Certainly on viewingbird-life as we ordinarily see it, and particularly soin this country, we are more impressed by a hawkthan a sparrow. Their relative sizes have not all todo with this. The hawk asserts himself, thrusts him-self upon our notice, and the timid sparrow cowersin his presence
. The birds about us . h ; and in spite of all biological disquisition andlearned anatomical treatises and evolutionary phi-losophy, a bird that outflies all others and preysupon others will be held to be the better bird, and soprove by what it accomplishes that which the system-atist denies concerning him. Certainly on viewingbird-life as we ordinarily see it, and particularly soin this country, we are more impressed by a hawkthan a sparrow. Their relative sizes have not all todo with this. The hawk asserts himself, thrusts him-self upon our notice, and the timid sparrow cowersin his presence. We never forget this, and naturallyin studying the birds about us turn from power toweakness, and not from the humble stand-point glanceupward towards the powerful; and yet the sparrowand the thrush have a standing in the bird-worldthat is far more exalted than that of the eagle, falcon,or even the huge king vulture. We cannot always forget that these birds, except thevultures, are murderers, as we call them. We know. Birds of Prey. i6i that a hawlc will kill a thrush, and so condemn it;but the thrush that eats an earthworm goes course in this, as in all else, man is very incon-sistent ; but when we simply see the hawk hoveringabove an uncared-for mouse, or mark the eagle ashe flies directly towards the sun, or follow the ma-noeuvres of falcons that chase each other until abovethe clouds, and swooping earthward with lightningspeed, just clear the ground and rise with fixed pinionsto the upper air, we are so filled with honest admirationthat the so-called bad qualities are quite of prey may be low in the scale of the system-atist, but forever they will remain the birds of birds. There are three groups into which this class isdivided, and we all recognize the differences at aglance: the Vultures, the Falcons, and the Owls. Vultures, while in a sense birds of prey, are car-rion-feeders, and this feature, while it makes themrepulsive, at the same tim
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1895
