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Show A SINGULAR HAWK STORY. A correspondent, writing from Columbus, Ohio, tells in the New York Evening Post, a singular story of a weasel overcoming a hawk in mid-air. Not long since, while in a thickly wooded district in the northern part of this State, my attention was attracted to the peculiar movement in the flight of what proved to be a large male N???us Cooperi, or Cooper's Hawk. He flew in circles just over the tops of trees which bordered a meadow land, through which ran a small stream of water. Each circle he made seemed to be smaller than the preceding one, and notwithstanding my presence each circle brought him nearer to the ground. Now and then he would take an upward flight, as if doubling the certainty of his prey, when presently he seemed to know that his best chance was at hand, and swooping down upon his victim, seized it in his talons and started away. He had not gone far when he began to ascend in a perpendicular line, with a tremendous flapping of his wings, as if something troubled him. Arising to about double the height of the surrounding trees, he began slowly to descend with drooping head, and his tail, which acted as well as a rudder to guide him in his upward flight, now seemed to be a useless member, while the wings had ceased their flapping and were spread motionless in the air. All this time I could distinguish something, as it were, in the shape of a snake coiled up in his talons. Notwithstanding his seemingly exhausted condition, every now and then he would make an effort to ascend, but his efforts were in vain. In a few minutes more he struck the ground, when instantly from his talons there sprang a common brown weasel which made its way to the nearest underbrush. Upon examining the bird, which was more dead than alive, I found that this cunning little animal had succeeded in forcing its slender body through the tight grasp of the hawk's claws, until it reach the part on the left side of the bird immediately under the wing. There it nibbled a small hole and drank the blood of this high flown bird until it was compelled to die the death it had intended for its victim. UNEASY lies the foot that wears a corn. |