HOW SOME GROWN-UP BIRDS GET A LIVING. 143 
not, as a rule, so cannibalistic as the hawks. While 
the larger catch fowls, the smaller owls subsist mostly 
upon small mammals. 
Of course, it is well known that the osprey takes 
fish exclusively, grabbing them with its feet. Both 

Peregrine falcon, the most skilled bird of prey. 
it and the owls have the outer toe well spread back- 
ward to increase the certainty of grasp—a sort of 
shotgunlike arrangement that a skilled marksman as 
an eagle or falcon would disdain. Kites are large 
consumers of snakes, eating them as they fly, and the 
secretary bird makes war upon them also, striking 
them down with its spurred wings. 
