BIRDS OF PREY. 23 



experience as a falconer with birds of this very species 

 enabled him fully to confirm my estimate, though, as 

 he frays, it is difficult to conceive the lungs of any bird 

 lasting through it. Of course this rapidity of motion, 

 could not be maintained for long, but that it is actually 

 attained I have not the shadow of a doubt. 



It was a strange idea that the peregrine killed 

 or disabled its prey by a blow with its breast ; but 

 this -is such an evident absurdity that it has long 

 been discarded. Alexander Wilson thus alludes to this 

 opinion : 



"From the best sources of information we learn that 

 this species is uncommonly bold and powerful, that it 

 4arts on its prey with astonishing velocity, and that it 

 strikes with its formidable feet, permitting the duck to 

 fall previously to securing it. The circumstance of the 

 hawk never carrying off the duck on striking it, has 

 given rise to the belief of that service being performed 

 by means of the breast, which vulgar opinion has armed 

 with a projecting bone adapted to the purpose. But 

 this cannot be the fact, as the breast-bone of the bird 

 does not differ from that of others of the same tribe, 

 and would not admit of so violent a concussion." 



In Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary,"* an ac- 

 count is quoted from a writer in a popular periodical 

 of a peregrine pursuing a razor-bill, and stating that 

 " instead of assaulting, as usual, with the death pounce 

 from the beak, he seized it by the head with both his 

 claws." This " as usual," is undoubtedly a mistake, for 

 the stroke is given with the foot. 



Byron was no better ornithologist than the writer 



* Second edition, 1831. 



