A Stern Chase 367 



usually in the proportion of four or five to one, and I 

 witnessed the beginnings of more than one stern chase, and 

 sometimes, also, its closing chapters. On one occasion, on 

 the Ddwallt, when lying watching a Peregrine circling idly 

 overhead, I saw her suddenly galvanised into action, and 

 rushing like a thing bewitched in the direction of a distant 

 form, which a moment later was seen to be a white-winged 

 pigeon. The luckless quarry, probably some homer 

 winging its weary way over the mountains, happened to be 

 shaping a course nearly straight in my direction, and did 

 not apparently perceive its enemy till she had attained a 

 dangerous proximity, and was in fact all but preparing to 

 stoop. With nothing but the shelterless moor beneath, 

 and the shadow of death so close above him, the odds 

 looked then a thousand to one against poor " White-Wings " 

 ever seeing his dovecot more, but yet he put up a gallant 

 fight for life. The only possibility of escape lay in sheer 

 endurance, and strength of wing, and he was instantly 

 fleeing at a pace sufficient to have outstripped most pursuers. 

 No effort, however, could avail to stave off that tremendous 

 stoop ; and a few white feathers floating in the falcon's wake, 

 as she shot headlong past, told how narrow had been the 

 margin between life and death. Two more stoops were 

 either less skilfully delivered, or more skilfully avoided, and 

 in less time than it takes to write these words, pursuer and 

 pursued had vanished round the shoulder of the hill, 

 and the spectator was left musing on one of the unsolvable 

 problems of nature that are ever before us. In the very 

 prime of life and strength, and in the faithful discharge of 

 the message entrusted to him, why must P. be suddenly 

 annihilated in order to provide F. with a dinner ? And 

 that, too, with a wife and family, perhaps, depending upon 

 him at home ! It looks so unfair upon the face of it ; but 

 then, on the other hand, how otherwise is F. to earn his 

 livelihood, or to provide for his family's wants ? The 

 sacrifice of life and matter continually going on around 

 us may often strike us as almost wanton waste, but it is a 

 decree of the Creator from which there is no escape. The 

 very elements are perpetually at war with one another ; and 



