112 ORNITHOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 



the first party that might pass within reach of his 

 gun. He had not been there long before a pere- 

 grine falcon swept by, and made a dash at the 

 lure, but discovering his mistake, almost at the 

 very moment when he seemed to strike it, rose 

 with the quickness of thought, and flew into a tree 

 about thirty yards from the spot where the farmer 

 lay concealed. The latter, who still imagined it 

 to be a wood-pigeon never before having seen a 

 peregrine fired, and killed the falcon, thus 

 unconsciously destroying his best friend, and 

 depriving himself of a most powerful ally in thin- 

 ning the ranks of his feathered enemies. 



A falcon was caught in a singular situation 

 last September at the farm of Saddlescombe, 

 between Shoreham and the Devil's Dyke. While 

 engaged in taking sparrows under the thatched 

 eaves of a barn, the farmer was surprised at 

 the sudden plunge of a heavier body into the 

 net, whose violent struggles among the meshes, 

 and the liberal use of its sharp claws, at first in- 

 duced him to believe that he had captured a cat. 

 It turned out, however, to be a peregrine a bird 

 of the year. 



Although, from a general similarity both in as- 

 pect and structure, the hobby (Falco subbuteo) 

 has been correctly styled a miniature peregrine, 

 yet, unlike that species, it prefers the wooded 



