24 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 



above quoted, for in the original draught of " Childe 

 Harold " (canto 3, stanza 18), he wrote : 



" Here his last flight the haught} r eagle flew, 

 Then tore with bloody beak the i'atal plain." 



In the edition of 1837 this note is appended : 

 " On seeing these lines, Mr. Reinagle sketched a 

 spirited chained eagle, grasping the earth with its talons. 

 This circumstance being mentioned to Lord Byron, he 

 wrote thus to a friend at Brussels : ' Reinagle is a 

 better poet and a better ornithologist than I am ; eagles 

 and all birds of prey attack with their talons, and not 

 with their beaks, and I have altered the line thus : 



" Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain. 



"This is, I think, a better line, besides its poetical 

 justice/' 



On April 5, 1856, I obtained a peregrine, which had 

 just felled a common blue pigeon to the ground by a 

 stroke of its foot, and was descending to pick up its prey, 

 when it was shot. It was a remarkably fine male bird 

 in perfect feather, with the markings clear and dis- 

 tinct. The pigeon, when taken up, was found to have 

 received a fearful blow, the back being deeply ripped 

 up, clearly evidencing the force with which it had been 

 struck. 



Of the smaller falcons, the hobby and the merlin occur 

 with us at short intervals, whilst the kestrel is as abun- 

 dant here as it seems to be in every other part of the 

 kingdom. 



Although the Hobby (F. sulbuteo) is always con- 

 sidered a summer visitor, yet it is strange that I have 

 never met with it at that season. My note-book records 

 the occurrence of three individuals in about eight or 



