I have some other animals besides hawks and eagles. First, a 3-year-old female dog named “Sakura”. I think she is a mongrel between “Shiba”, a kind of Japanese dog, and something. She is so friendly to everyone that she is not useful as a watchdog, but she is very fierce to the rabbits I keep. The Shiba is said to be excellent as a hunting dog and her nature may be the proof of it. Next is a male black and white cat that has no name. He stays in my house without any permission of my family. Yes, he is actually a stray cat. Sometimes he goes somewhere for more than a month. Therefore he can’t be said a member of my family, but I hope he won’t be attacked by my hawk or eagle. He is so cautious and agile that he may survive. And I keep rabbits and chickens as food for my hawks and eagles because hawks and eagles are both completely flesh-eating animals. In addition, I sometimes keep snakes and frogs. I go to mountains very often to gather edible wild plants and to catch small animals for my hawks and eagles. I just caught a snake and gave it to “Derusuu” only few days ago.
By the way, I have a bitter memory about a snake. When I was in the first
grade at junior high school, I caught a big green snake in a mountain and
kept it secretly in my room on the second floor. One day, while I was out,
the snake crawled out of a cardboard box which I kept it in, then it came
down the stairs and went into the bathroom. At that time, unfortunately,
my grandmother had just got out of the bath. She had poor sight and also
the bathroom was poorly lighted. She mistook the green snake for her waistband
and grasped it. She was terribly frightened, but she never fainted with
nothing on. I think she was really tough. When I came back home, my family
had been in a great fuss about that. I was scolded badly and was made to
return the snake to nature.
Matsubara Hidetoshi