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stoop comes from a high altitude generally, and much more time 
having been afforded her the falcon, she either slays the grouse, 
or “puts it in.” Every creature I know, and I believe every 
insect, has some peculiar way (peculiar to its tribe) of escaping 
from itsenemies. . Grouse, at all events, possess plenty of brains 
in their small heads, and shift in air, from the stoop, towards the 
end of the season, by a singular spring or shoot upwards, a few 
inches before the hawk’s talon can touch them. Very much 
surprised she usually seems at this mancuvre. Their usual 
method is, however, to stop dead short, in their most rapid 
flight, and hurl themselves to the ground instantly. This 
should be seen to be at all believed. The very first time I ever 
saw it performed, close to me, was over the stony and rocky 
bed of a burn, into which an old cock grouse hotly pursued 
precipitated himself. Well, he has done it now, methought—a 
clear case of suicide. I'll pick up the little there can be left of 
him. I marked the very spot; no grouse, no blood; not 
a feather about. No; but to my astonishment up jumped 
a grouse, well and strong, from the stone at my foot. Down 
came the disappointed but now rejoicing hawk; and I have 
just wiped my pen, on a pen wiper, ornamented by R. Ward, 
with the stuffed head of a fine old Cheshire grouse killed by 
this falcon “Islay,” belonging to my friend, the Rev. George 
Karle Freeman (“ Peregrine” of the Field newspaper) in the 
first week of December. If I add that my grouse have 
developed a strange habit of flying into thick cover of young 
and old fir trees on the moor, like black game, but unlike tetrao 
lagopus, I have done with this fine sporting quarry. My 
eyess falcon, “ Lundy,” six years old, killed in 1885, 70 
partridges, and in 1889 64 grouse and a teal. The partridge is 
a jolly little fowl, though not to be compared with the denizen 
of the heather. (I have usually three covies of partridges on 
my moor, where they appear to feed on the seeds of a rush, and 
are smaller and darker than the type.) I hawked them 
regularly for many years on the open downland arable expanse 
of South Wilts, using good dogs, and possessing two of the best 
partridge hawks—tiercels or males, and nestling peregrines— 
