“The bird I was thinking of,” rejoined Caspar, “is of the same genus as the eagle. I believe that’s correctly scientific language. Isn’t it, my Buffon of a brother? Ha! ha! Well, shall I name it? Surely, you have already divined the sort of bird to which I allude?”
“No, indeed,” replied Karl. “There are no other birds in this valley of the same genus as the eagle—except hawks; and according to the closet naturalists, they are not of the same genus—only of the same family. If you mean a hawk, there are several species in this place; but the largest of them could not carry anything over the cliff heavier than a string of twine. See, there’s a brace of them now!” continued Karl, pointing to two birds that were circling in the air, some twenty yards overhead. “‘Churk’ falcons they are called. They are the largest of the Himalayan hawks. Are these your birds, brother?”
“A couple of kites, are they not?” interrogated Caspar, turning his eyes upward, and regarding the two winged creatures circling above, and quartering the air as if in search of prey.
“Yes,” answered the naturalist, “they are of that species; and, correctly described, of the same genus as the eagles. You don’t mean them, I suppose?”
“No—not exactly,” replied Caspar, in a drawling tone, and smiling significantly as he spoke; “but if they be kites—Ho! what now?” exclaimed the speaker, his train of thought, as well as speech, suddenly interrupted by a movement on the part of the falcons. “What the mischief are the birds about? As I live, they seem to be making an attack upon Fritz! Surely they don’t suppose they have the strength to do any damage to our brave old dog?”
As Caspar spoke, the two falcons were seen suddenly to descend—from the elevation at which they had been soaring—and then sweep in quick short circles around the head of the Bavarian boar-hound—where he squatted on the ground, near a little copse, some twenty yards from the hut.
“Perhaps their nest is there—in the copse?” suggested Karl; “That’s why they are angry with the dog: for angry they certainly appear to be.”
So any one might have reasoned, from the behaviour of the birds, as they continued their attack upon the dog—now rising some feet above him, and then darting downward in a sort of parabolic curve—at each swoop drawing nearer and nearer, until the tips of their wings were almost flapped in his face. These movements were not made in silence: for the falcons, as they flew, kept uttering their shrill cries—that sounded like the voice of a pair of angry vixens.
“Their young must be near?” suggested Karl.
“No, sahib,” said Ossaroo, “no nest—no chickee. Fritz he hab suppa—de piece ob meat ob da ibex. Churk wantee take de dog suppa away.”