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swoop without the skin being broken. At other times, 

 when making a quarry, the peregrine cuts the head clean 

 off his victim, the head and body being sometimes found 

 yards apart. At other times the head is found hanging 

 to the body bya bitofskin. Most keepersof my acquaint- 

 ance who have spent their lives among the mountains 

 are agreed that the peregrine strikes with his wing. 

 Falconers, on the other hand, deny this, and assert the 

 blow is struck with his talons. Their experience, how- 

 ever, is unfortunately only derived from birds kept in 

 confinement. 1 1 has been noted by careful observers that 

 when young peregrines commence to hunt for them- 

 selves, they clutch their prey ; but, as can easily be 

 understood, it would be dangerous to clutch and bind 

 to a heavy bird such as a blackcock or a duck flying at 

 its utmost speed, and they soon give up clutching. 

 Personally, I have seen a blackcock, several grouse, a 

 golden-eye drake, and a mallard struck down by the 

 peregrine, the victims in every case being dead except 

 the last mentioned, which was only stunned, and flew 

 off when approached. Major Morant, who spent ten 

 years of his life in the wilds of Ardnamurchan, after 

 describing birds killed in the air by wild hawks, says : 

 " The grand sudden death of these birds is certainly 

 very different to the descriptions one reads of the way 

 tame hawks take herons. After getting above them, 

 they seem to settle on their backs (binding is, I be- 

 lieve, the correct term), and they descend to the earth 

 together, scratching and fighting like a bagful of cats." 



