POINTS FROM -LETTERS
YOUNG-CARRYING Bums.
The following quotation from Fowls of the Air, by William J. Long, may be of interest -to you. After describing the eaglet's fears, and the mother eagle's vain efforts to make it use its wings, he writes " Suddenly as if discouraged, she rose well above him. I held my breath, I knew what was coming. The little fellow stood on the edge of the nesf, looking down at the plunge, he dare not take. There was a sharp cry from behind, which made him alert, tense as a watch spring. The next instant the mother eagle had swooped, striking the nest at his feet, sending his support of twigs and himself with them out into the air together. He was afloat now, afloat on the blue air in spite of himself, and flapped lustily for life. Over. biru, under him, beside him hovered the mother on tireless wings; calling softly that she was there. But the awful fear of the depths . . . was upon the little one ; his flapping grew more wild • he fell faster and faster. Suddenly— more in fright it appeared,' to me, thari because he had spent his strength—he lost his balance and tipped head downward in the air. It was all over now, he folded his wings to be dashed in pieces among the trees below. Then like a flash the old mother eagle shot under him, hiri despairing feet touched her broad shoulders, between her wings. He righted himself; rested an instant; found his head ' • -then she dropped like a shot from under him, leaving him to come down on his own wings.. . . And then standing alone in the great wilderness it flashed upon me for the first time just what the wise old prophet meant: . . . As the eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadetfrabroad- her wings, taketh them, beareth on her wings,—So the Lord.' "
—EDITH PILKINGTON, Rainford Hall, St. Helens.
THE BLACKBIRD'S WARNING.
I recently witnessed the following incident in my small Hampshire garden. A sparrow busy in the grass at. the foot of a tree ; a blackbird perched upon the same tree about thirty feet away. Suddenly the blackbird, piping shrilly, swooped down to the sparrow, and they both rose swiftly. At the same moment a third bird; a sparrow-hawk, struggled up after a long and futile drop. So short was the time taken by this incident that the three birds seemed to rise together from the grass. A ," miss is as good as a mile," however, and thanks to the warning of the blackbird the sparrow remained a sparrow instead of beComing a breakfast. Possibly this tale may be of interest to your readers. I:have never known a hawk come so close to an occupied house.--Faum W. Harrox, Rotherwick, Hampshire.
A LINK wrrn MARK TWAIN.
I want to call the attention of your readers to the fact that Mrs. Laura Frazer has just died at Hannibal, Missouri. Mrs. Frazer's maiden name was Laura Hawkins, and she was the prototype of one of Mark Twain's most famous characters, Becky Thatcher in Tom Sawyer.' Sam Clemens and Laura Hawkins would play together as children. Paine, in his Mark Twain, says : " !When Sam had got the hang of his work he was usually done by three in the afternoon • then away to the river or the eaves, sometimes with his boy friends, sometime'- with Laura Hawkins, gathering wild columbine on that high cliff overlooking the river, Lover's Leap."— , CYau...CLEarciss, Mayfield, California.
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