en of the aquiline type,
nose and chin coming together, and eyes large and sunken. They now
glared upon us with a wild, savage look, and opened their beaks
threateningly.

The next week, when my friend visited the nest, the larger of the hawks
fought him savagely. But one of the brood, probably the last to hatch,
had made but little growth. It appeared to be on the point of
starvation. The mother hawk (for the male seemed to have disappeared)
had perhaps found her family too large for her, and was deliberately
allowing one of the number to perish; or did the larger and stronger
young devour all the food before the weaker member could obtain any?
Probably this was the case.

Arthur brought the feeble nestling away, and the same day my little boy
got it and brought it home, wrapped in a woolen rag. It was clearly a
starved bantling. It cried feebly but would not lift up its head.

We first poured some warm milk down its throat, which soon revived it,
so that it would swallow small bits of flesh. In a day or two we had it
eating ravenously, and its growth became noticeable. Its voice had the
sharp whistling character of that of its parents, and was stilled only
when the bird was asleep. We made a pen for it, about a yard square, in
one end of the study, covering the floor with several thicknesses of
newspapers; and here, upon a bit of brown woolen blanket for a nest, the
hawk waxed strong day by day. An uglier-looking pet, tested by all the
rules we usually apply to such things, would have been hard to find.
There he would sit upon his elbows, his helpless feet out in front of
him, his great featherless wings touching the floor, and shrilly cry for
more food. For a time we gave him water daily from a stylograph-pen
filler, but the water he evidently did not need or relish. Fresh meat,
and plenty of it, was his demand. And we soon discovered that he liked
game, such as mice, squirrels, birds, much better than butcher's meat.

Then began a lively campaign on the part of my little boy against all
the vermin and small game in the neighborhood, to keep the hawk
supplied. He trapped and he hunted, he enlisted his mates in his
service, he even robbed the cats to feed the hawk. His usefulness as a
boy of all work was seriously impaired. "Where is J----?" "Gone after a
squirrel for his hawk." And often the day would be half gone before his
hunt was successful. The premises were very soon cleared of mice, and
the vicinity of chi