Читать книгу Jack Miner and the Birds, and Some Things I Know about Nature онлайн

42 страница из 53

ssss1

Now, dear reader, I am well aware of the fact that my book would be more popular if I left these questions out. I am like yourself, I wish I had nothing to say but good about every bird, for I love to see them. But remember, what I am telling in this book is what I know about nature, so please don’t jump on me with both feet for telling the truth.

First of all let me say that the larger the hawk, the more anxious the majority are to shoot him. This is a mistake. It is the medium-sized hawk that is the worst. The sparrow-hawk is the smallest, and he is hard on fledglings such as bobolinks and song sparrows. Yes, I know they will eat grasshoppers, but these are usually eaten by the young birds; the adult sparrow-hawk lives chiefly on mice and small birds.

When I raised pheasants I always made a “hide” where I could lay for the little chicks’ enemies. One day I fed my chicks at one p.m., when I returned at four-thirty I tapped the tin to call them and only seven out of the seventeen little beauties came and they were on their tiptoes, shy and frightened. My first thought was, “a weasel,” but when I saw Mrs. Hen turn her head sidewise and look up, I called to my boy to bring the shotgun and a couple of loads of No. 6. I soon was in the “hide,” and the boy had scarcely got to the house when I heard the old hen say “k-tt-tt-tt,” meaning “lie low,” so I took her advice, and in about five seconds a sparrow-hawk came down out of the heavens like a bullet—too fast for me. Before I could get the gun on him he was on the ground. He saw me and missed his bird; and when he was about four feet in the air again I just lifted him with a load of shot. The next morning we went over to the woods and destroyed the other old one and the young, and found remnants of some of the young pheasants. Now this hawk killed and carried away ten of these little chick pheasants in less than four hours. These little pheasants were about ten days old. After pheasants get to be the size of a small quail or mourning dove, sparrow-hawks will not take them. Many a small hawk have I fooled by taking a little dead pheasant and running a wire through him, standing up in a natural position on a steel trap, letting Mr. Hawk come down out of the air and help himself. I have often caught owls in this same way.