92 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



her offspring. He pointed out that a bear has been put 

 to ignominious flight by a mother cat, and that though in 

 an open field the falcon might have triumphed it would, 

 amidst such closed surroundings, probably have been 

 destroyed. 



Personally I hold that, unless the cat obtained a death 

 grip on the falcon in the early stages of the fight — v^^hich 

 is wildly improbable — it would almost immediately have 

 lost its nerve, and the peregrine, fighting from above, 

 would have obtained a hold on it, and dragged it out 

 into the open. This may sound a tall order to all save 

 those who know the deadly ferocity and intentness of 

 purpose of these larger birds of prey when once a combat 

 is opened — bearing in mind also that their presence seems 

 to have a mesmeric effect upon their intended quarry, 

 as in the case of the rabbit and the stoat. For example, 

 a dog working before guns has been attacked by an 

 eagle, and though the dog was uninjured it was observed 

 by the sportsman that it simply fell limp immediately 

 the eagle's talons closed upon it. The peregrine in 

 question might have been partially blinded, he might 

 have been mortally wounded, but from what I know of 

 the character of the wild peregrine I believe that he would 

 have returned to the attack time and again till the cat, 

 becoming less and less of a mother and more and more 

 of an abject fugitive, would eventually have been beaten 

 senseless by the blows from the peregrine's beak and by 

 the assault of its claws. 



Diverting still further — a plainsman with whom I 

 was acquainted had the good fortune to witness a contest 

 on the foothills of the Rockies which has an interesting 

 bearing on the incident under discussion. He was 

 watching a jackal pursuing a prairie hare in broad daylight 

 when a falcon — probably a peregrine — descended from 

 the heavens and caught and pinned the hare. The 



