PEREGRINE HOBBY. 5 



great hawks, and fourteen fair horses or hobbys," as an in- 

 ducement to assist him in his warfare against the Pale.* 



Indeed, we can scarcely wonder at the interest that hawk- 

 ing excited in a bygone time, when we see the falcon in the 

 present day belled and tasselled upon his block, his form stiff 

 and upright, and each dignified movement made as if with a 

 perfect consciousness of the terrible powers he is possessed of. 

 With the peregrine the form is well adapted to the immense 

 velocity which it is known to attain, and which, in the full 

 rushing swoop after the quarry, has been calculated at a ratio 

 of fifty to one hundred and fifty miles in an hour. Thus 

 we might imagine one of those birds swooping from an alti- 

 tude in the air and hurling to the earth the heron or the 

 mallard it had pursued. However, to all water birds the 

 water is a sanctuary never invaded by the peregrine, ducks 

 generally succeeding in escaping by diving, an instance of 

 which is afforded by a simile of Dante 



" Thus dives the mallard underneath the flood, 

 By the fleet falcon on the lake pursued 

 Baffled, the bird ascends, and seeks his lord." 



On one occasion a mallard, not so fortunate as the one in- 

 stanced by Dante, was found " in possession" of a male pere- 

 grine, which was shot, and stretched lifeless upon the quivering 

 form of his prey, where life was not yet extinct. Retribution 

 had at least dealt sternly, and overtaken him " red-footed" in 

 the strife. 

 Indigenous. 



SPECIES 4 THE HOBBY. 



Falco subbuteo. Linn. 



Faucon hobereau. Temm. 



THIS species, which we might designate as a peregrine in 

 miniature, is of extreme rarity in its occurrence, one spe- 

 cimen, obtained in 1822,f being the only authentic intance 

 we have, which was shot by Mr. Parker, of Cork, on the 

 garden wall of the family mansion at Carrigrohan. Rare in 

 its distribution in England, the hobby appears only as a rare 

 summer visitant, where its habits have been remarked as simi- 

 lar to the other falcons, excepting a marked predilection which 

 it exhibits in the pursuit of the skylark. 

 Habitat Eastern Europe. 



* Annals of the Four Masters. t Thompson. 



