92 MR CARR ON THE FLIGHT OF THE PEREGRINE FALCON 



those objects of chase, w hich are the most natural to her, which she 

 is most on the look out for when hungry, and which she flies most 

 keenly to capture. This is the naturalist''s best order of proceeding 

 in such a matter, though, certainly, not the falconer's, who often has 

 to contend with her troublesome predilection for pigeons and rooks. 



Every year, during the autumnal months, or from about the middle 

 of September until Christmas, our Border district is visited by pere- 

 grine falcons, on that errand of migration which has gained them 

 their distinctive denomination of Peregrinus, a name that has been 

 well conveyed into popular language by the old term, passage-hawk. 

 At that season, the species, though never abundant here, is far from 

 being rare. Most of the individuals seen are the yearling birds, 

 known among falconers as " Red-hawks." Their russet-brown plum- 

 age enables us to distinguish them, in a favourable light, at a con- 

 siderable distance, from an old bird, which is much lighter in colour ; 

 the whole upper plumage being ash-grey after the summer moulting. 

 The falcons, properly so called, fly very differently from hawks of 

 the more sluggish families, such as the kites, harriers, and buzzards. 

 The wings, which are gracefully pointed, are moved with strong and 

 muscular strokes, these being given with considerable rapidity, and 

 reminding us somewhat of the common pigeon, which has the same 

 free decided action in her wings, and probably about the same rela- 

 tive weight of body to support. Allowance must of course be made 

 in such a comparison, for the hawk being so vastly larger. 



In size and extent of wing, the female peregrine may be compared 

 to the curlew, and the strokes are given with about the same rapidity 

 as in that bird. The curlew itself may be regarded as the strongest 

 and most perfect flier among our large birds ; mounting aloft with 

 astonishing ease, proceeding extremely fast, and, in the season of 

 courtship, performing the fiinest evolutions in the air which it is pos- 

 sible to witness, accompanied by those thrilling characteristic notes 

 that delight every traveller upon the moors. I may observe, in 

 passing, that it is but rarely a falcon can succeed in killing a curlew, 

 and that I have never witnessed even a pursuit. The tercel or male 

 peregrine is fully one third smaller than the female. 



In both sexes, all the movements bespeak strength and energy, 

 and are, at the same time, peculiarly graceful. Hence, in contradis- 

 tinction to the short-winged and more sluggish goss-hawk, the French 

 and Norman falconers called the peregrine, Faucon gentily using the 



