reading his wings ready for
instant flight in case the attack should prove successful; the hawk
emerging with a struggling fish in his talons, and proud flight; the
eagle launching himself in pursuit; the wonderful wing-work in the
sky, the fish hawk, though encumbered with his prey, circling higher,
higher, striving hard to keep above the robber eagle; the eagle at
length soaring above him, compelling him with a cry of despair to drop
his hard-won prey; then the eagle steadying himself for a moment to
take aim, descending swift as a lightning-bolt, and seizing the
falling fish before it reached the sea.

Not less exciting and memorable was Audubon's wonderful story of the
passenger pigeon, a beautiful bird flying in vast flocks that darkened
the sky like clouds, countless millions assembling to rest and sleep
and rear their young in certain forests, miles in length and breadth,
fifty or a hundred nests on a single tree; the overloaded branches
bending low and often breaking; the farmers gathering from far and
near, beating down countless thousands of the young and old birds from
their nests and roosts with long poles at night, and in the morning
driving their bands of hogs, some of them brought from farms a hundred
miles distant, to fatten on the dead and wounded covering the ground.

In another of our reading-lessons some of the American forests were
described. The most interesting of the trees to us boys was the sugar
maple, and soon after we had learned this sweet story we heard
everybody talking about the discovery of gold in the same
wonder-filled country.

One night, when David and I were at grandfather's fireside solemnly
learning our lessons as usual, my father came in with news, the most
wonderful, most glorious, that wild boys ever heard. "Bairns," he
said, "you needna learn your lessons the nicht, for we're gan to
America the morn!" No more grammar, but boundless woods full of
mysterious good things; trees full of sugar, growing in ground full
of gold; hawks, eagles, pigeons, filling the sky; millions of birds'
nests, and no gamekeepers to stop us in all the wild, happy land. We
were utterly, blindly glorious. After father left the room,
grandfather gave David and me a gold coin apiece for a keepsake, and
looked very serious, for he was about to be deserted in his lonely old
age. And when we in fullness of young joy spoke of what we were going
to do, of the wonderful birds and their nests that we should f