a hen-hawk, and now it settles on the topmost branch of a white maple, bending it down. Its great armed and feathered legs dangle helplessly in the air for a moment, as if feeling for the perch, while its body is tipping this way and that. It sits there facing me some forty or fifty rods off, pluming itself, but keeping a good look-out. At this distance and in this light it appears to have a rusty-brown head and breast, and is white beneath, with rusty leg feathers and a tail black beneath. When it flies again, it is principally black varied with white, regular light spots on its tail and wings beneath, but chiefly a conspicuous white space on the forward part of the neck. Also some of the upper side of the tail or tail-coverts is white. It has broad, ragged, buzzard-like wings. I think it must be an eagle (?) It lets itself down, with its legs somewhat helplessly dangling, as if feeling for something on the bare meadow, and then gradually flies away soaring and circling higher and higher until lost in the downy clouds. This lofty soaring is at least a grand recreation, as if it were nourishing sublime ideas. I should like to know why it soars higher and higher so, whether its thoughts are really turned to earth, for it seems to be more nobly as well as highly employed than the laborers ditching in the meadows beneath, or any others of my fellow townsmen.
