122 THE KEEPERS BOOK 



of victims brought to the nestlings, have any concep- 

 tion of the havoc they commit among winged game. I 

 once sat for hours with a glass and watched what was 

 carried to the eyrie by the peregrine. In five hours I 

 saw five grouse brought, and it was interesting to note 

 how dexterously he transferred them to his mate, which 

 flew out of the eyrie and met him in mid-air. When 

 the young are able to use their wings, they fly out and 

 snatch the prey from their parents in the same manner. 

 Notwithstanding the depredations among grouse, when 

 in coveys, by the peregrine when providing for its nest- 

 lings, it is in the spring months that most damage is 

 done, as he then breaks up the pairs, it being almost 

 certain that either the cock or the hen will fall a victim. 

 The peregrine falcon is by far the noblest and most 

 dashing of our British birds of prey. He is a bold and 

 pitiless marauder, and Highland lairds will never know 

 what rentals their estates can realise so long as this 

 merciless tyrant among grouse life is allowed to harbour. 

 Endless discussion has from time to time taken place 

 in the columns of sporting and other papers between 

 falconers, naturalists, sportsmen, and keepers, as to how 

 a falcon strikes his prey. Falconers determinedly adhere 

 to the theory that it is done by means of the talons. It 

 is difficult to reconcile this with the fact that some of the 

 victims have not even a scratch on them, only a blue 

 mark on the spine, the result of a severe blow. One 

 can hardly understand how this blow could be struck 

 by those terrible talons at the terrific pace of a falcon 



