THE JER-FALCON. 89 



very strong. The talons are much hooked and exceedingly 

 sharp, and flat or grooved on the under sides. 



Their command of the air is truly wonderful. A few 

 strokes of their powerful wings will send them up till they 

 are hardly visible ; or bring them from the top of their flight 

 to within a short distance of the ground. At times they will 

 ride motionless, as if they were anchored in the sky; and 

 anon, with hardly any perceptible motion of the wings, they 

 will shoot with the rapidity of a meteor and the certainty of 

 an arrow, aye, more certainly, and at a farther range than 

 ever shaft that human archer set on the string. The collision 

 of their pounce is terribly effective. It is seldom the mere 

 difference of velocity; for their habit is to rise above their 

 quarry, and press their weight into the service of their wings 

 by an oblique descent ; but still that is no mean force which 

 can break a wing, strike off a head, or burst a bird asunder, 

 when it is not merely suspended in the air only, but in rapid 

 motion away from the striker. If the falcon misses, we need 

 not wonder that the quarry escapes before it can again rally; 

 and if the falcon comes upon the bayonet charge of the 

 quarry, as is sometimes the case when it stoops at the heron, 

 we need not wonder that it is transfixed. The balistic pen- 

 dulum used in experimental gunnery, though suspended on 

 hinges, gives way to the cannon shot ; what then shall we 

 say of the stroke of the falcon, which breaks bones flying 

 away in the air, and defended by feathers ! The keen point 

 of the claw of that terrible claw on the hinder toe, which 

 concentrates the whole momentum of the bird, and always 

 strikes perpendicularly and penetrates is the main instru- 

 ment of the effect. 



THE JER-FALCON, OR ICELAND FALCON (FalcO Icelandic^). 



If, in command of the air, the falcons take the lead of all 

 the feathered tribes, the jer-falcon unquestionably takes the 



