194 A NOBLE BIRD 



me; wherefore, peering cautiously over the mound, I 

 enjoyed the rare privilege of watching at close quarters 

 one of the wariest and keenest-sighted of all birds. I 

 had often seen trained falcons at work and on the 

 wrist, but here was an untamed peregrine within half 

 a dozen yards of me. I beckoned to my companion to 

 join me. Unluckily, he had not realised the situation, 

 and poked his head rashly over the bank. The falcon 

 shot off like a meteor, breasting the strong breeze as 

 her long pinions bore her swiftly along the coast. If 

 falcons have a sense of humour, how they must chuckle 

 over the noisy, clumsy, costly efforts at aviation by us 

 unfeathered bipeds ! 



Three features distinguish the true falcons from the 

 hawks, namely : (1) the sharp notch on either side of 

 the maxilla, or upper half of the falcon's beak, that of 

 the hawk being smooth or gently sinuated ; (2) the iris 

 in the eye of a falcon is always dark, nearly as dark as 

 the pupil, whereas in nearly all hawks the iris is yellow ; 

 (3) in the falcon's wing the second -and third pen 

 feathers are the longest, while in a hawk's wing the 

 longest are the fourth and fifth. The last may seem a 

 trivial distinction, but it is constant, and suffices to alter 

 the shape of the organ of flight from a pointed wing to 

 a rounded one. Of ten species of falcons admitted to 

 the British list, four are no more than very rare visitors, 

 namely, the gyr falcon, the Iceland falcon, the Green- 

 land falcon, and the lesser kestrel. Three species only 

 are resident in my native Galloway the peregrine, the 

 kestrel, and the merlin. Even these have become very 

 scarce, owing to game preservers treating them indis- 



