578 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 
sufficiently indicates, it is a bird of passage. It is common in thé 
centre and north of Western Europe, as well as in the islands of 
the Mediterranean. It also inhabits North America, where it is 
frequently called the Chicken-eater. 
The flight of the Peregrine Falcon is wonderfully rapid. One of 
these birds having escaped from the falconry of Henri II., it is said 
that it performed the whole distance from Fontainebleau to Malta in 
one day, over 300 leagues. It hovers in the air with graceful 
Fig. 266.—Lanner Falcon. 
facility, and when it marks a victim, swoops upon it with extraordi- 
nary rapidity, courage, and ferocity. 
The falcon feeds principally on aquatic birds, pigeons, partridges, 
and larks. So great is its courage that it has been known to pursue 
the latter into the nets of the bird-catcher. If compelled, it will eat 
dead fish, as was observed by Audubon on the banks of the Missis- 
sippi; but this latter circumstance is excessively rare. This bird 
possesses little dread of man, for it sometimes has the audacity to 
pounce upon the game which the sportsman has killed, and not 
unfrequently succeeds in carrying it off. One of these birds estab- 
