NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



them to hawking men. There are, by the way, many 

 more people hawking in this country than there were 

 thirty or forty years ago. It is pleasant to know that 

 this fine old English sport still maintains its existence, 

 and I have every sympathy with its devotees. In fact 

 I look upon hawking, which I have had the pleasure 

 of witnessing occasionally, as one of our most interest- 

 ing field sports, far more worthy of the name than, for 

 instance, modern pheasant-shooting. Still, though one 

 may be in complete sympathy with the needs of the 

 falconer, one draws the line when the eyrie of a Sussex 

 peregrine has to be robbed for the falconer's behoof. 

 Our peregrines are really too few to be thus ill-treated, 

 and I was by no means sorry when I heard, a year or 

 two back, that the nest-plunderer aforesaid had failed 

 in his object. He had a commission for young pere- 

 grines from a certain falconer, and made a journey to 

 the cliff for the purpose of getting down to the eyrie. 

 The wind was so high, however, that he found it im- 

 possible to effect his purpose, and I believe, for that 

 year, at all events, the peregrine parents managed to 

 rear their young. 



Few facts in natural history are more remarkable than 

 that concerning the peregrine falcon and her mate. If, 

 by unhappy chance — the gunshot of some rabid collec- 

 tor or gamekeeper, for example — she is bereft of her 

 mate, the tiercel, as falconers call him, she quits her 

 usual haunt and sails away into space. How or where 

 she picks up a fresh husband it is impossible to say, 

 but in a few days she reappears with a fresh mate, and 

 is to be seen wheeling on strong pinion about her 

 ancestral places. In the case of a British falcon thus 

 bereaved, she will probably make her way straight to 

 Iceland, or Scandinavia, or some other part of wild 

 north Europe, seek out her choice and bring him back 



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