The red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks are also easily attracted in this manner, but the rough-legged hawks, although they live almost entirely on mice, are not so readily deceived, though this is undoubtedly owing more to their extreme wariness than to any dullness of hearing on their part. None of the falcons or short-winged hawks pay the slightest attention to the most lifelike squeaking, so that evidently when they do deign to attack such ignoble quarry as a field mouse they depend more on their eyesight than on the sense of hearing. One still October day the red-tailed hawks were soaring and screaming above the pines beneath which I was hidden; by mimicking their cries I enticed one of them nearer and nearer, till at last he closed his wings and alighted bolt upright on a dead stump not fifty feet away. Changing my tactics, I endeavored to convince the hawk that a family quarrel was in progress among the mice in the thick clump of pines below him, and was rewarded by seeing him turn first one keen eye and then the other on my place of concealment; then he leaned forward and crouched catlike on his perch, half opening his broad wings and shifting his feet about in his impatience. But he evidently desired more positive evidence than his ears could give him before making the final dash for his breakfast. There was a slender dead branch beside me, and cautiously taking this, I shoved it slowly along under the carpet of pine needles out into the opening, as one sometimes amuses a kitten with a pencil beneath the tablecloth. The instant the hawk's eye caught the movement of the pine needles he descended with a whir almost to the point of seizing the stick in his claws; then, catching sight for the first time of the author of his disappointment, he rose flapping into the air, shrieking out his anger to the skies. If we had been more evenly matched in weight, I fear I should have suffered the most extreme punishment for my deceit. The northern shrike is generally given the credit of living to a certain extent on mice, but the only evidence pointing in that direction that I have ever seen is that, like the mouse-eating hawks and owls, he comes quickly enough to the call; nor is there any need of concealment when dealing with this bird. He will come fearlessly within a few yards of you, hopping and flying from twig to twig, with his long tail continually moving up and down in his excitement, apparently impelled more by motives of curiosity than hunger. [Illustration: NORTHERN SHRIKE.] But when it comes to calling up to you such shy creatures as the mink or fox the utmost caution is necessary, for although lacking the keenness of eyesight possessed by birds, the acuteness of their sense of smell and hearing is something marvelous; yet when conditions are favorable they may sometimes be brought quite close and studied to advantage.