526 THE PRAIRIE FALCON, 
bottom winds deviously over intersecting talus beds, “rock slides,” while the 
sun-kissed battlements of riven rock tower on either hand to the height of a 
thousand feet; and they clear their own debris in sheer walls of at least half 
that height. About the brink of the precipice a dozen Falcons are at play. It 
is courting time and the birds are showing off. The females are the larger 
birds, but it is their turn to sit in the boxes while the aspirants perform. The 
doughty males are not really contending—only renewing their vows as they 
come hurtling out of the heavens, screaming like all possessed and cutting 
parabolas whose acuteness is a marvel of the unexpected. The female screaks 
in wild approval, or takes a turn herself because she cannot contain her fierce 
emotions. The rock walls resound with boisterous music, and the observer 
feels as tho he were witnessing the play of elemental forces—riotous, exultant, 
unrestrained, the very passion of freedom and conquest. 
The Falcon is king of birds and he knows it. Ferocity gleams in his eye 
and menace quivers in his talons. Mastery is his element; his very wings flash 
confidence ; and caution is to him a thing unknown. The much-vaunted Eagle 
is a craven beside him, and nothing affords the smaller bird greater delight 
than to hector his lethargic kinsman. 
The Prairie Falcon is doubtless something of a tease at best. One ob- 
served at Brook Lake made life miserable for an inoffensive Red-tail who 
chanced to occupy the same ledge; and he also took elaborate pains to chase 
the Great Blue Herons out of bound. The Falcon would make repeated 
dashes at the passing hulk, but he could hardly have intended bodily injury to 
the Herons, for he permitted them to evade each time by ducking, and he 
probably enjoyed sufficiently the bellow of mingled fear and rage which he 
was able with each threat to elicit from the larger birds. 
The flight of the Prairie Falcon is always easy and graceful, being often- 
est accomplished by a succession of short wing beats alternating with a sail. 
The bird mounts rapidly, and if intent on distant hunting grounds, is, because 
of its light coloration, soon lost to eye. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the 
swiftness of the Falcon’s flight thru comparison with that of any other bird. 
I should say that the White-throated Swift alone excels it. 
While jogging along thru a little coulee in the Okanogan country my 
horse almost stepped on a Meadowlark which rose and immediately settled 
again within ten feet. Thinking of a possible nest, I dismounted and turned 
my horse’s head, disturbing as I did so another lark from my very feet, and 
putting the first bird to flight for some two or three rods further. At that 
moment a Falcon flashed past my head with a quick /dhuff, and before T could 
recover from amazement, the Hawk was speeding out of sight with the lark in 
its talons. So instant was the Falcon’s swoop that I, altho looking straight at 
the scene, could not have told within ten feet where the Hawk annexed the lark. 
The bird makes little fuss over the capture of small game. It simply ma- 
