the trees and shrubbery in pursuit of their game and employing the cover of foliage with uncanny skill. They take a terrible toll of bird life, from song-birds up to grouse and pheasants, and in summer they are the two hawks which are really responsible for most of the chicken-stealing. I have seen one come up to an orchard where hens were scratching, keeping the trees between him and his quarry till he was close by. Then he swooped like Then he swooped like lightning in under the branches, seized a chicken, and rose with it, all before a man could have reached for a gun and fired. The illustrator of this book tells me he once saw a sharp-shinned hawk fly so low he seemed to be actually hugging the ground. He reached a thick hedge, simply flowed up over it, and landed in a flock of pigeons on the other side, killing two of them before they knew he was anywhere about. Personally, I disapprove of egg hunting and collecting. There are plenty of available collections for study, and most eggs would do more good as birds than as neglected "specimens" amid the clutter of a boy's den. But if the boy can be taught to distinguish the eggs of the Cooper and sharp-shinned hawks, the more he collects the better! It will not benefit his clothes, but it will help the community and all the beneficent birds.

The sparrow-hawk (a small falcon) and the marsh-hawk (which may be distinguished unfailingly by the white upper tail coverts) should both be allowed to live, perhaps the former, at any rate. Their food for the most part consists of mice, insects, and so on, although both take a certain toll of bird life, especially the marsh-hawk. At the worst, they are South Germans, not Prussians. The sparrow-hawk is a pretty little falcon, with considerable rosy color on him, and is seen, perhaps, more often than almost any bird of prey by the average unobservant person, because he often sits on roadside telegraph poles or courses over the fields. I have seen them over the prairie close to the edge of the Rocky Mountains, and even in the heart of a

city. Mr. Stone1 records that once he had a studio in Washington near the Treasury Building, and a pair of sparrowhawks came daily to a telephone pole close by and lay in wait for the English sparrows, which they apparently took to their young somewhere in a concealed courtyard. (They often nest in hollow trees.) This would seem to suggest possibilities to those communities which are infested with sparrows. A few pairs of sparrow-hawks on every block would soon clean things up!

The marsh-hawk (which is a mediumsized bird, about seventeen inches long) has apparently the habit of hunting over a regular beat. I have records of this from points as distant as New England and Mexico (the latter recorded by Charles Livingston Bull). In each case the bird always appeared from a certain quarter, followed a definite line of flight while under observation, and disappeared at the same place. When the marshhawk notes some disturbance in the grass or gets sight of a mouse or young woodchuck or desirable insect, he suddenly stops, mounts a little, hovers watching, and then strikes with great speed. It is estimated that a pair will account for eleven hundred mice, small birds, and other prey in the ten weeks of incubation and rearing of a family. Were it not for the fact that something over 25 per cent. of this total is sure to be birds, the marshhawk would not be a bad fellow to have around. At the worst, he is listed only as "doubtful" by most ornithologists. To-day I stopped my motor beside a wide field and watched one hunting. He flew low-not over twenty feet up-and paid no attention whatever to the other birds, which were numerous. He was intently watching the ground as he flew, and when he finally struck-too far away for me to see clearly-it was at something on the ground, probably a field-mouse. On the other hand, in March, when there were still no insects and the mice were still

Walter King Stone, the illustrator of In Berkshire Fields.

hidden, I watched a marsh-hawk flying over the fields beside a small pond. He found nothing, and crossed the water. On the other shore he suddenly poised himself in mid-air for a long moment, then dropped to a height of only a few feet, and shot up over a little headland of shrubs, coming down into the bushes on the other side. As he swooped, I saw several small birds, probably song-sparrows, scatter with little cheeps of terror into the densest part of the shrubbery. As they scattered, the hawk wheeled and dodged about, trying to snatch one out of the air. He then rose twenty feet, hovered over the spot for some time, and eventually decided it was no use, darting swiftly away. The episode, however, did not make me feel very pleasantly toward him.

Eagles are becoming so rare in the East now that few people ever see one. Sometimes they think they see one, when it is in reality the big osprey, or fish-hawk. That noble-looking and vicious-acting brute, the golden eagle, who nests on inaccessible cliff ledges, has been driven more and more into remote mountain fastnesses. But the bald eagle still is found occasionally. In December, 1917, one was seen in southern New Hampshire, and the next day one was shot in Maynard, Massachusetts, while eating a pig he had just killed. Presumably it was the same bird seen in New Hampshire the day before. Twenty-five years ago we used to see bald eagles rather frequently both in Rhode Island, along the salt ponds, and in the wilder parts of the Berkshires and the White Mountains. But they are encountered less and less often now. You have to seek the high Rockies to find them a characteristic feature in the aërial perspective.

But the owls we have with us still. The taxidermists agree that more great horned owls were brought in the last two winters than in any season for years. In fact, the supply of artificial eyes for the stuffed specimens was entirely exhausted before the winter of 1917-18 was over. Probably this means that the severe cold

added many birds from the north to our resident population. The great horned owl, or "six-hooter" as he is called in the Adirondacks, because of his "song," is the bad citizen among the owl tribe. (His "song," however, is by no means always of six hoots.) He is a big bird, standing often a full two feet high, and weighs about four pounds. He hunts by night, as a rule, but more than once he has been caught out in the daytime, and I have known of one with a crow in his talons, pursued by thousands of live crows, in full day. The crows did not molest him while he was perched, but when he attempted to fly they swarmed down upon him. It was in deep woods, and the uproar could be heard a mile away. He did not escape till darkness came. One of these big owls can easily kill a hen, or even a turkey, and on farms which adjoin the wild forests where the owls love to nest (in hollow trees or even in old crows' nests) they are often a serious pest. They also kill skunk, woodchuck, game-birds, and rabbits, as well as song-birds and mice. The call of the great horned owl is generally represented as follows: Whoo, hoo-hoo-hoo, whoo, whoo. It doesn't sound unlike the long-drawn toot of a distant freight-engine. An owl on my mountain last winter invariably omitted the first whoo.

I have found but one record of a snowy owl in western Massachusetts, though they not infrequently come down the seacoast in winter, from their northern home, even as far as Long Island. This one appeared a few years ago, and was captured single-handed by an old lady. She heard a commotion just at twilight in her chicken-yard, rushed out, and saw the great white bird, a total novelty to her, endeavoring to rise with her pet rooster in his talons. The rooster was putting up a good scrap, and the old lady rushed to his assistance, armed with her apron. She got the apron over the owl, and actually succeeded in getting him into the house, though both she and the apron showed the marks of the contest. One of the menfolks then appeared and killed it,

and it is now a treasured ornament of the front parlor.

The barn-owl is not found in our region either, which is a pity, for he is not only one of the most humorous-looking creatures in the feathered kingdom, running a close race for first honors with the penguin and the puffin, but he is also a great destroyer of rodents far exceeding the much-vaunted barn cat, which usually prefers milk to mice. I have often wondered why the bird societies do not try the experiment of distributing barnowls to regions where they are not at present found. The same barn-owl, in Europe, lives in deserted castles and haunted towers and

does to the moon complain

Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.1

Undoubtedly he is also the owl who, on a certain famous and romantic evening, "for all his feathers was acold." It is rather curious that two birds so famous in Old World song and legend as the peregrine falcon and the barn-owl should play so slight a part in our New World life. The barn-owl, at least, deserves recognition and protection. Some years ago a colony of barn-owls lived in the Smithsonian tower in Washington, entering and leaving by a broken window. Somebody mended this window, thus killing all the owls inside and driving away all who were outside at the time. A careful and expert examination of the dead birds, the pellets, and the nests showed that the owls of this colony had been taking a tremendous toll of rodents and small pests; they had been a positive asset to the surrounding community.

Many observers maintain that the barred owl (which is somewhat smaller than the great horned, and is often called the "eight-hooter," because his call has eight notes) is now more common than his larger cousin. This is probably true in

1Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."

"Keats' "The Eve of St. Agnes."

many, if not most, sections of Massachusetts, though hardly here where I live, I think, in the mountains and close to extensive tracts of woodland. The barred owl is not a robber like the great horned. He lives chiefly on mice and other small mammals, and should be protected. The following note from the illustrator is interesting and vivid.

Once I was fishing for bullheads at night on Lake Catherine near Poultney, Vermont, and I heard a barred owl and answered him. Inside of half an hour I had three in one tree on the edge of the lake; I could even hear them squabbling and flapping among the limbs of the tree. They kept answering me for an hour or more. When I began calling I could hear them approach down the mountain by stages-first far off, then nearer, then from the lake margin, and then an interval and the voice would come from the nearer shore, the owl having flown across. It was exciting.

I fancy that for most Americans the little screech-owl (so called, though he doesn't screech) really inspires the romance which in Europe is the possession of the barn-owl. of the barn-owl. That soft, mournful, prolonged whistle of his, that quavering note as if he always had his vox humana stop pulled all the way out-whoo-oo-oo00-00--00---00---00- has been heard by all of us, winter and summer, in the still night, often from the orchard beside the house. Many a night, as a boy, I have lain in bed and listened to the owl calling from his hole in an old apple-tree, while the November wind rustled the dead leaves on the oak beside my window and a delicious melancholy stole over me. Many a time, too, I have seen, in the daytime, the face of the little fellow peering from a hole, and watched it fade mysteriously from sight as I drew near, much like the Cheshire cat when conversing with Alice. However, if you poked your hand down into the hole, it was no spirit nip you got on the finger! The screech-owl, something like the black bear, has a red phase. (The so-called cinnamon bear is not a separate species). Certain observers have sought to explain this by differences in diet. Doctor Eaton discov

ered that the red-owls he examined had been eating crayfish. As the screechowls in the Mississippi Valley, where crayfish are abundant, are more often red than gray, there would seem to be some basis for the theory. The little fellows nest in early spring, laying their eggs in New England before May 1st, and they often use an old flicker-hole. Undoubtedly, the owls could be persuaded into artificial boxes, and this should be done. Not only are they beneficial birds, hunting mice eagerly, but their faces at the nest hole by day are odd and pretty sights, and when they are caught outside the nest and puff themselves out or draw themselves up straight and thin, to look like a strip of bark, they are excellent examples of the protective instinct at work.

Last spring, in April, we enjoyed for several evenings a curious experience. In a meadow near our farm, and beside the road under the mountain wall, suddenly appeared a flock of screech-owls. There must have been twoscore at the least. Evidently they foregather, something like crows, at the news of good hunting, and make a clean-up. This meadow, which also comprised a garden and cornfield where the corn had stood shocked all winter, was no doubt full of mice. Beginning at sundown and keeping it up till about nine or nine-thirty, the owls hunted over this field for five or six nights, and then disappeared again. They flew low, back and forth, and as they flew they kept up their quavering call, which, when they are on the wing, is fairly loud and sounds a little like a kind of mournful laughter. The air was so full of this , sound, which would come rustling at you overhead, and grow fainter into the distance as the dim, receding form of the bird was outlined against the late twilight sky, that it was strangely unreal, almost as if you stood with Dante on a brink where the lost souls fluttered past. Only the shrill peeping of the hylas kept the sense of our familiar fields in April.

I had never seen so many owls, of any sort, at one time before.

There is one bird not classed with the raptores which visits us in winter and must be included among those foes of animal or bird life which swoop down out of the air. It is the Northern shrike, or butcher-bird. He is purely a winter. visitor in the East, and I think is growing much less common. The Northern

shrike is a little over ten inches in length, gray on top, with black tail and wings. On each wing is a white spot, and the ends of the tail feathers are white. He will pursue a winter bird like a treesparrow or chickadee or nuthatch relentlessly through trees and thickets till the poor little thing is exhausted, when the shrike kills him by a blow on top of the head and carries him off. One of his curious tricks is to impale his prey on a thorn or the barb of a fence. If you have ever found a small bird or mouse thus impaled, he was probably put there by a shrike. The captor perhaps was later scared away, or he may even have killed for the love of it, without any intention of eating his prey. One of the oddest shrike tricks I have seen recorded is that described by an observer in Birds of New York. This bird was hunting sparrows near the railroad yards in Green Island, New York. He caught two and impaled them on the point of a lightning-rod at the top of a brick chimney a hundred and forty feet high. A pair of fieldglasses were used to verify the fact.

On a little artificial pond near my farm we have seen domestic ducks pulled under and killed by snapping-turtles (the submarine menace); we have seen fish taken by an osprey (the hydroplane menace); we have seen hens and pheasants and other creatures killed by hawks and owls (the airplane and Zeppelin menace). When it come to cruelty, even in our little world of farms and peaceful hills and lovely forests nature has given man most of his lessons; which, to be sure, is hardly a valid excuse for man, at that.

Looking

WHAT of England? back at the immense effort of the British people in the war, our high sum of sacrifice in blood and treasure, and the patient courage of our fighting-men, the world must, and does, indeed, acknowledge that the old stoic virtue of our race was called out by this supreme challenge, and stood the strain. The traditions of a thousand years of history filled with war and travail and adventure, by which old fighting races had blended with different strains of blood and temper-Roman, Celtic, Saxon, Danish, Norman-survived in the fiber of our modern youth, country-bred or city-bred, in spite of the weakening influences of slumdom, vicious environment, ill-nourishment, clerkship, and sedentary life. The Londoner was a good soldier. The Liverpools and Manchesters were hard and tough in attack and defense. The South Country battalions of Devon and Dorsets, Sussex and Somersets, were not behindhand in ways of death. The Scots had not lost their fire and passion, but were terrible in their onslaught. The Irish battalions, with recruiting cut off at the base, fought with their old gallantry, until there were few to answer the last roll-call. The Welsh dragon encircled Mametz Wood, devoured the "Cockchafers" on Pilkem Ridge, and was hard on the trail of the Black Eagle in the last offensive. The Australians and Canadians had all the British quality of courage and the benefit of a harder physique, gained by outdoor life and un

1From Now It Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs. Copyright, 1920, by Harper and Brothers. Reprinted by permission.

weakened ancestry. In the mass, apart from neurotic types here and there among officers and men, the stock was true and strong. The spirit of a seafaring race which has the salt in its blood from Land's End to John o' Groat's and back again to Wapping had not been destroyed, but answered the ruffle of Drake's drum and, with simplicity and gravity in royal navy and in merchant marine, swept the highways of the seas, hunted worse monsters than any fabulous creatures of the deep, and shirked no dread adventure in the storms and darkness of a spacious hell. The men who went to Zeebrugge were the true sons of those who fought the Spanish Armada and singed the King o' Spain's beard in Cadiz harbor. The victors of the Jutland battle were better men than Nelson's (the scourings of the prisons and the sweepings of the press-gang) and not less brave in frightful hours. Without the service of the British seamen the war would have been lost for France and Italy and Belgium, and all of us.

The flower of our youth went out to France and Flanders, to Egypt, Palestine, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Saloniki, and it was a fine flower of gallant boyhood, clean, for the most part eager, not brutal except by intensive training, simple in minds and hearts, chivalrous in instinct, without hatred, adventurous, laughterloving, and dutiful. That is God's truth, in spite of vice-rotted, criminal, degenerate, and brutal fellows in many battalions, as in all crowds of men.

In millions of words during the years of war I recorded the bravery of our