THE TEMPLES OF THE HILLS 265 



Watching these birds from day to day with an 

 endless delight in their beauty and vigour, their 

 dashing flight, and shrill passionate cries of anger 

 and apprehension, I could not help thinking of all 

 the pleasure that hawks in general are to the lover 

 of wild life in countries where these birds are per- 

 mitted to exist, and, in a minor degree, even in this 

 tame England — this land of glorified poultry-farms. 

 There is no more fascinating spectacle in wild life 

 than the chase of its quarry by a swift-winged hawk; 

 and on this account I should be inclined to put 

 hawking above all other sports but for the feeling 

 which some of us can never wholly get away from, 

 that it is unworthy of us as rational and humane 

 beings, possessing unlimited power over all other ani- 

 mals, to take and train any wild rapacious creature 

 to hunt others to the death solely for the pleasure 

 of witnessing its prowess. No such disturbing feeling 

 can affect us in witnessing the contests of bird with 

 bird in a state of nature. Here pursuer and pursued 

 are but following their instincts and fulfilling their 

 lives, and we as neutrals are but spectators of their 

 magnificent aerial displays. Such sights are now 

 unhappily rare with us. At one period of my life 

 in a distant country they were common enough, and 

 sometimes witnessed every day for weeks at a stretch. 

 Here the noblest of our hawks are all but gone. The 

 peregrine, the most perfect of the falcons — perhaps, 

 as some naturalists think, the most perfect of the 

 entire feathered race — maintains a precarious exist- 

 ence on the boldest sea-cliffs, and as to the hobby, 



