16 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



precipice. Indeed, the description will hold 

 good even as regards the favourite prey (columba) 

 of the peregrine as every falconer knows, and 

 as I can myself testify from personal observation 

 of his habits in a state of nature. On one of the 

 most inaccessible ledges of a lofty maritime cliff 

 on the north-west coast of Ireland a pair of 

 these hawks have for many a long year been 

 established : there have I frequently seen either 

 of them plunge into the midst of a party of 

 rock pigeons (columba livia), as they issued from 

 a deep fissure in the face of the rock, and carry 

 one off to their expectant family. Even the 

 deadly clutch of the falcon at the moment that 

 he grasps his quarry (comprensamque tenet) is 

 true to the life, for although at other seasons, 

 and in different situations, he usually fells his 

 victim to the earth at a single blow, yet when 

 foraging for his young he selects from the motley 

 inhabitants of the cliff one of moderate size a 

 pigeon, a puffin, a herring gull, a jackdaw, and 

 occasionally even his congener the kestrel for a 

 greater burden might impede his ascent to the 

 eyrie ; and it would be irretrievably lost if struck 

 in the ordinary manner, and suffered to fall into 

 the sea, perhaps many hundred feet below. 



But although sacred to the gods (sacer ales] 

 in classic times, and although to the vigour, 



