eggs, precisely like hens' eggs, until broken, when their delicate pale
green inner membrane betrayed their dangerous origin. It is chiefly
owing to this practice of laying in swamps that the various kinds of
hawk increase and thrive as they do, for if it were possible to get
at them, the shepherds would soon exterminate the sworn foe of
their chickens and pigeons. They are also the great drawback to the
introduction of pheasants and partridges, for the young birds have not a
chance in the open against even a sparrow-hawk.

Although it is a digression, I must tell you here how, one beautiful
early winter's day, I was standing in the verandah at my own home, when
one of our pigeons, chased by a hawk, flew right into my face and its
pursuer was so close and so heated by the chase, that it flung itself
also with great violence against my head, with a scream of rage and
triumph, hurting me a good deal as it dug its cruel, armed heel into my
cheek. The pigeon had fluttered, stunned and exhausted to the ground,
and, quick as lightning I stooped to pick it up; so great had been
the impetus of the hawk's final charge that he had never perceived his
victim had escaped him. The cunning of these birds must be seen to be
believed. I have often watched a wary old hawk perched most impudently
on the stock-yard rails, waiting until a rash chicken or duckling
should, in spite of its mother's warning clucks of terror, insist on
coming out from under her sheltering wings. If I took an umbrella, or a
croquet mallet, or a walking stick, and went out, the bird would remain
quite unmoved, even if I held my weapon pointed gun-wise towards him.
But let anyone take a real gun and hold it ever so well hidden behind
their back, and emerge ever so cautiously from the shelter of the
shrubs, my fine gentleman was off directly, mounting out of sight with a
few strokes of his powerful wings, and uttering a shriek of derision as
he departed. Nothing is so rare as a successful shot at a hawk.

We consoled ourselves however on this occasion, by reflecting that we
had annihilated two young hawks before they had commenced their lives
of rapine and robbery, and rode on our way rejoicing, to find Ned Palmer
sitting outside his but door on a log of drift wood, making, candles. In
the more primitive days of the settlement, the early settlers must have
been as badly off for light, during the long dark winter evenings, as
are even now the poorer inhabitants of