Having wings, the takahe flies not. The wings are not rudimentary, but the bird makes no attempt to use them. The legs are longish and very stout, the feet not webbed, and furnished with sharp, powerful claws. The oddest feature of all is the bill, an equilateral triangle of hard pink horn. Along the edge, where it joins the head, there is a strip of soft tissue much like the rudimentary comb of a barn-yard fowl. "Around the glistening wonder bent The blue wall of the firmament; No clouds above, no earth below, A universe of sky and snow." --_Whittier._ [Illustration: FROM COL. F. NUSSBAUMER & SON. A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. RED-TAILED HAWK. 1/3 Life-size. COPYRIGHT 1899, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.] THE RED-TAILED HAWK. (_Buteo borealis._) C. C. M. Until recently the red-tailed hawk was classified with the obnoxious hawks which prey upon birds and poultry, but the Department of Agriculture instituted an investigation of this species and concluded that it has a far worse reputation with the average farmer than it deserves. The late Major Bendire asserts that, while it does capture a chicken or one of the smaller game birds now and then, it can readily be proved that it is far more beneficial than otherwise and really deserves protection instead of having a bounty placed on its head, as has been the case in several states. The red-tailed buzzard, as it is sometimes called, in its light and dark geographical races, is distributed throughout the whole of North America. Its food is chiefly small quadrupeds, red squirrels, gophers, and moles, and the remains of these rodents may be found in this bird's nest containing young. Where this hawk is found these small animals are most abundant. Longfellow in the "Birds of Killingworth," among the "Tales of a Wayside Inn," has written a defense of the hawks that the Audubon societies might well use as a tract.