And those by the riverside, hearing the cry, looked up, and looking up they sighed. The red-brown eggs also were cracking open and the young birds coming out of the shells. Soon the earth children must follow their bird leaders. They fed and tended the young birds for still a few days.
Then one morning there were sighs and discontent on the cliff. For the birds which came from the blue shells were feathered and ready for flight. Their colours were black and white! So also is all the bare earth and the new-fallen snow!
It was a pair of ravens, which the stronger earth children followed to the country where winter follows summer and where men work for food. As the earth children laboured, the ravens taunted them with hoarse, laughing cries.
Now those other earth children who watched the red-brown eggs stood up by the riverside and smiled.
From the red-brown eggs had come birds of gorgeous plumage. On the breath of a sweet-scented breeze they were wafted far to southward—to the summer land. And those earth children who followed the beautiful birds still live easily in the land of everlasting summer-time.
ALL ABOUT THE CHICKEN-HAWK
SUGGESTIONS FOR FIELD LESSONS
Voice—sharp, harsh, discordant cries—queer "whistling" noises.
Upper parts brownish black mixed with white—throat and under tail coverts white—other under parts having darker markings.