Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/588



On the 6th August 1833, while my young friends, Thomas Lincoln and Joseph Cooledge, accompanied by my son John, were rambling by the rushing waters of a brook banked by stupendous rocks, eight or ten miles from the port of Bras d'Or, on the coast of Labrador, they were startled by a loud and piercing shriek, which issued from the precipices above them. On looking up, my son observed a large hawk plunging over and about him. It was instantly brought to the ground. A second hawk dashed towards the dead one, as if determined to rescue it ; but it quickly met the same fate, the contents of my son's second barrel bring- ing it to his feet.

The nest of these hawks was placed on the rocks, about fifty feet from their summit, and more than a hundred from their base. Two other birds of the same species, and apparently in the same plumage, now left their eyry in the cliff, and flew off. The party having ascended by a circuit- ous and dangerous route, contrived to obtain a view of the nest, which, however, was empty. It was composed of sticks, sea-weeds, and mosses, about two feet in diameter, and almost flat. About its edges were strew- ed the remains of their food, and beneath, on the iTiargin of the stream, lay a quantity of wings of the Uria Troile, Mormon arct'icus, and Tetrao Saliceti, together with large pellets composed of fur, bones, and various substances.

My son and his companions returned to the Ripley towards evening. The two hawks which they had brought with them, I knew at once to be of a species which I had not before seen, at least in America. Think not that I laid them down at once — No, reader, I attentively examined every part of them. Their eyes, which had been carefully closed by the young hunters, I opened, to observe their size and colour. I drew out their powerful wings, distended their clenched talons, looked into their mouths, and admired the sharp tooth-like process of their upper mandible. I then weighed them in my hand, ajid at length concluded that no Hawk that I had ever before handled, looked more like a great Peregrine Falcon.