Page:Wild folk - Samuel Scoville.djvu/104

82 plover's plump breast. As his fierce eyes caught sight of the flitting bat, his wings flashed through the air with the same speed that had overtaken the plover. No bird that flies could have kept ahead of the rush of the great hawk through the air.

A mammal, however, is farther along in the scale of life than a bird, and more efficient, even as a flyer. As the pricked-up ears of the bat caught the swish of the falcon's wings, the beats of its own skin-covered pair increased, and the bird suddenly ceased to gain. Disdaining to double or zigzag, the great bat flew the straightaway race which the falcon loves, and which would have meant quick death to any bird who tried it. Skin, however, makes a better flying surface than feathers, and slowly but unmistakably the bat began to draw away from its pursuer. The gyrfalcon is the speed-king among birds, but the hoary bat is faster still. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed before the hawk realized that he was being outflown. Increase his speed as he would, the bat, in an effortless nonchalant manner, moved farther away. When only a streak of silver sky, with a shoal of little violet clouds, was left of the daylight the gyrfalcon gave up the chase. As he swooped down to earth like a white meteor, the brown figure of the bat disappeared in the violet twilight, beating, beating his way south.

As the sky darkened to a peacock-blue, and a faint amber band in the west tried to bar the dark, suddenly the star-shine was full of soft pipings and chirpings. The night-flyers had begun their journey,