He eyed me and I eyed him.
Then the bird disclosed a trait that was new to me: he hopped along the
limb to a small cavity near the trunk, when he thrust in his head and
pulled out some small object and fell to eating it. After he had
partaken of it for some minutes he put the remainder back in his larder
and flew away. I had seen something like feathers eddying slowly down
as the hawk ate, and on approaching the spot found the feathers of a
sparrow here and there clinging to the bushes beneath the tree.
The hawk then--commonly called the chicken hawk--is as provident as
a mouse or a squirrel, and lays by a store against a time of need,
but I should not have discovered the fact had I not held my eye on him.
An observer of the birds is attracted by any unusual sound or commotion
among them. In May or June, when other birds are most vocal, the jay
is a silent bird; he goes sneaking about the orchards and the groves as
silent as a pickpocket; he is robbing bird's-nests and he is very
anxious that nothing should be said about it; but in the fall none so
quick and loud to cry "Thief, thief!" as he.
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