142 WOODLAND, MOOR, AND STREAM 



most fiercely. There was no time to lose. Throwing 

 my rifle up, I aimed at one of his eyes ; the shot told, 

 for it entered his brain, and he fell with a mighty 

 crash almost at my feet. 1 



According to Eastern tradition, it is the last straw 

 that breaks the camel's back. I fled from the pre- 

 sence of that mighty hunter, for I knew the skull had 

 been bought in Wardour Street. 



To return to our birds of prey, the noble jerfalcon 

 is only a rare visitor of ours ; and when he is seen it 

 is only, as a rule, in a state of immature plumage. 

 Why he has not been used so much as the peregrines 

 we do not know. At the time ' Falconer's Favourites ' 

 was published, he was not with them, and that work 

 states that all the falcons used in falconry at that 

 date were represented in the volume. I once had the 

 pleasure of seeing a grand female jerfalcon ; quite 

 white she was. The man who carried her had a 

 crimson hawking-glove, richly embroidered, on his 

 hand ; it showed off her pure plumage to great ad- 

 vantage. She was not hooded, and merely held by 

 the jesses attached to her legs. She sat very com- 

 posedly as he carried her through the main street of 

 a small fishing village. I fancy she had been flown 

 in the marshes close at hand. It seems to me people 

 were not so inquisitive in those days as they are now ; 



