CHAP. x.J PEREGRINE FALCON. 85 



cat with his wings, seized her in his powerful talons, with one 

 foot planted firmly on her loins, and the other on her throat ; 

 and nothing more was seen of poor Grimalkin except her skin, 

 which the eagle left empty and turned inside out, like a rabbit- 

 skin hung up by the cook, the whole of the carcass, bones and 

 all, being stowed away in the bird's capacious maw. The quan- 

 tity of meat taken from the stomach of an eagle killed on the 

 mountain is sometimes perfectly incredible. I regret not having 

 taken a note of the weight of mutton I once saw taken out of one 

 I shot. 



We are occasionally visited, too, by the peregrine falcon, who 

 makes sad havoc in the poultry-yard when he appears here. 

 There is a nest of these birds always built in the inaccessible 

 rocks of the Findhorn. Indeed, in the good old days of hawk- 

 ing, when a gentleman was known by his hawk and hound, and 

 even a lady seldom went abroad without a hawk on her gloved 

 hand, the Findhorn hawks were always in great request. The 

 peregrine seems often to strike down birds for his amusement ; 

 and I have seen one knock down and kill two rooks, who were 

 unlucky enough to cross his flight, without taking the trouble to 

 look at them after they fell. In the plain country near the sea- 

 shore the peregrine frequently pursues the peewits and other 

 birds that frequent the coast. The golden-plover, too, is a 

 favourite prev, and affords the hawk a severe chace before he is 

 caught. I have seen a pursuit of this kind last for nearly ten 

 minutes, the plover turning and doubling like a hare before 

 greyhounds, at one moment darting like an arrow into the air, 

 high above the falcon's head ; at the next, sweeping round some 

 bush or headland but in vain. The hawk, with steady, relent- 

 less flight, without seeming to hurry herself, never gives up the 

 chace. till the poor plover, seemingly quite exhausted, slackens 

 her pace, and is caught by the hawk's talons in mid-air, and 

 carried off to a convenient hillock or stone to be quietly devoured. 

 Two years ago I brought a young peregrine falcon down from 

 near the source of the Findhorn, where I found her in the pos- 

 session of a shepherd's boy, .who fed her wholly on trout. For 

 the first year the bin! was of a dark brown colour above, with 

 longitudinal spots on the feathers of her breast. On changing 

 her plumage during the second autumn of her existence, she 



