One bounds into the air with a comic curvet, and comes down with
a thud; the others copy him, and there is a wild maze of coiling bodies
and gleaming white tails. But let the treacherous wind carry the scent
of you down on the little rascals and you will see a change. An old
fellow sits up like a kangaroo for an instant, looking extremely wise
and vigilant; he drops and kicks the ground with a sharp thud that can
be heard a long way off; the terror of man asserts itself in the midst
of that pure, peaceful beauty, and the whole flock dart off in agitated
fashion till they reach their holes; then they seem to look round with a
sarcastic air, for they know that you could not even raise a gun to your
shoulder in time to catch one of them before he made his lightning dive
into the darksome depths of the sand-hill. How strange it is that
meditative men like to watch the ways of wild things! White of Selborne
did not care much for killing anything in particular; he enjoyed himself
in a beautiful way for years, merely because he had learned to love the
pretty creatures of fen and meadow and woodland. Mr. Russell Lowell can
spend a happy day in watching through his glass the habits of the birds
that haunt his great garden; he does not want a gun; he only cares to
observe the instincts which God has implanted in the harmless children
of the air.
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