so swiftly in zigzag course that commonly I only see the ripple he makes, in proportion, in this brook only a foot wide, like that made by a steamer in a canal. If I catch a glimpse of him before he buries himself in the mud, it is only a dark film without distinct outline. By his zigzag course he bewilders the eye and avoids capture perhaps.
March 15, 1860. 2 p. m. To Lee's Cliff. . . . A henhawk sails away from the wood southward. I get a very fair sight of it sailing overhead. What a perfectly regular and neat outline it presents! an easily recognized figure anywhere. Yet I never see it represented in books. The exact correspondence of the marks on one side to those on the other, as of the black or dark tip on one wing to that of the other, and the dark line midway the wing. I do not believe that one can get as correct an idea of the form and Color of the under sides of a hen-hawk's wings by spreading those of a dried specimen in his study as by looking up at a free and living hawk soaring above him in the fields. The penalty for obtaining a petty knowledge thus dishonestly is that it is less interesting to men generally as it is less significant. Some seeing and admiring the neat figure of the hawk sailing two or three hundred feet above their heads, wish to get nearer and hold it in their
