Nov. 1873 Sometimes you see one sitting for a long time motionless and erect in the tall grass watching like a cat, or perhaps walking slowly with a sideling motion - at this season it feeds exclusively on mice and rats, in early Spring on toads, frogs snakes &c. - I doubt if it ever attacks birds - for in about a dozen specimens examined at different times, I have never been able to detect any of their remains, and I have never in a single instance seen it pursue one of them on the wing. A wounded quail or snipe may occasionally fall a prey, but such instances must be very rare. A mouse when seized is usually tore in two, and the head and body bolted whole, while a rat is divided into 3 or 4 parts, but everywhere skin, bones, and all. By morning 5 or 6 mice to an generally captured, the crop and stomach both filled and the bird either removes to some high perch where it may remain undisturbed, or betakes itself to sailing in most graceful circles high up in the sky - Its flight is slow and rather heavy, but its acerial evolution extremely majestic and beautiful. When removing from one place to another it proceeds in a straight course, with 3 or 4 rather deliberate flaps of the wing, then an interval of sailing. When about to alight on a tree, it shoots upward in a cycloid curve, drops its feet to a branch, and closes its wings frequently without a single flap. Sometimes I have seen it swoop down from an height and almost grazing the ground, snap upward in the above described curv and alight almost without a perceptible motion of the wings - It near hunts its game on wing or swoops upon its directly from the air. It frequents