FALCONS AND ALLIED SPECIES. 49 



unless in the sparrow-hawk and gos-hawk. The tibial joint or 

 thigh, however, is pretty long, which acts as a lever when 

 pouncing upon and seizing their prey. They seldom use their 

 beak in killing. This is done by their powerful talons — one 

 stroke behind the head, another at the heart, generally suffices. 

 The bill is then used as a knife or pair of scissors in cutting up 

 the body. To aid them in the mission Nature has assigned them 

 to do, their claws are very sharp and strong, much curved, and, 

 in general, partly retractile. To symmetry of form they unite 

 great strength and activity, and the typical groups possess a 

 power of flight — both as to speed and duration — superior to 

 most of the feathered race. 



Being armed by Nature to carry out their mission of rapine, 

 and acting on the same principle with life which the vultures do 

 with death — thinning exuberance of animal life. And if it 

 were not for the pail or the burn, the tub or the sea, utilised by 

 prudent housewifery or reckless youth, Nature would have to 

 provide some other species of human vulture or eagle to 

 keep down the swarm of kittens and puppies, which otherwise 

 would, like Pharaoh's plagues of frogs and lice, infest the homes 

 of civilized life. And, regarding the varying species of humanity, 

 war, especially so-called religious ones — cupidity, self-interest, and 

 hunger, and the natural desires of man and woman, called love — 

 along with Nature's own balancers of life, such as fevers, choleras, 

 and diseases of all kinds, make a pretty efficacious substitute 

 for those useful birds of prey — the vulture or the harrier, the 

 eagle, the hawk, or the falcon, in keeping the world wisely safe 

 ■as regards the universal balance of species. However, regarding 

 our feathered friends the Falconiclce, their power of sight, like 

 their claws, is equally acute and piercing. They are also dis- 

 tinguished b} T courage and audacity — they know they are armed, 

 and are not slow in using their weapons when playing their part 

 in the wise economy of Nature. They prey almost wholly on 

 living creatures, which they either strike on the wing (as the 

 falcons or hawks) or pounce upon it on the ground, like the 

 buzzards or kites. Birds and quadrupeds are the usual food of 

 most of the species. Some, however, prey on fish, like the 

 osprey, and others live on the larger coleopterous insects. They 

 tear their prey in pieces with their bill and claws ; but their 

 claws are the weapons by which they kill, squeezing their 

 victims to death. As complete plucking or skinning would be 

 too tedious work, they swallow portions of the feathers, bones, 

 or fur, which they afterwards eject from the mouth in pellets. 



