Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/221

Rh for another spring by raising its head and looking off, and away it went in admirable style, more like a bird than any quadruped I had dreamed of, and far surpassing the impression I had received from naturalists' accounts. I marked the spot it started from and the place where it struck, and measured the height and distance carefully. It sprang off from the maple at the height of twenty-eight feet and a half, and struck the ground at the foot of a tree fifty and one half feet distant measured horizontally. Its flight was not a regular descent. It varied from a direct line both horizontally and vertically. Indeed, it skimmed much like a hawk, and part of its flight was nearly horizontal. It diverged from a right line eight or ten feet to the right, making a curve in that direction. There were six trees from six inches to a foot in diameter, one a hemlock, in a direct line between the termini, and these it skimmed partly round, passing through their thinner limbs. It did not, so far as I could perceive, touch a twig. It skimmed its way like a hawk between and around the trees. Though it was a windy day, this was on a steep hillside covered with wood and away from the wind, so it was not aided by .that. As the ground rose about two feet, the distance was to the absolute height as fifty and one half feet to twenty-six and one half