226 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



usually sunken, the shoulders rounded. At a long 

 range a flying Peregrine is best distinguished by 

 its quite long and sharply pointed wings and by 

 its comparatively short and rather wedge-shaped 

 tail, as well as by some vague trick of movement, 

 which the experienced /ieJd-ornithologist recognizes 

 directly, but which is quite impossible to describe 

 on paper. This is a remark which holds good for 

 most species, and one which I have proved over 

 and over again when out with a man who does 

 not profess great ornithological pretensions. For 

 instance, a bird, looking little more than a speck, 

 is seen approaching. You say at once " a so-and-so 

 (whatever it may be) coming." Your friend 

 replies: 'How on earth do you know that?' 

 You cannot exactly tell him, but a nearer view of 

 the creature perhaps through strong glasses 

 generally convinces him that you were right. Of 

 course no one is infallible the naturalist who says 

 he is, is hardly truthful but to the careful observer 

 his infallibility generally extends to momentary 

 errors only. I digress, however. 



To return to the Peregrine, at the eyrie and 

 when hunting or flying for sheer pleasure-^as 

 birds certainly do on occasions wonderful aerial 

 evolutions may be witnessed. Now a pair soar 

 grandly, head to wind naturally, on extended and 

 rigid pinion, like two anchors, even in the teeth 

 of the fiercest gale and that too without giving 

 back an inch ; now they describe wide, sweeping 



