84 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



and beak, and a flashing eye. Every line of him 

 looks cruel — and is cruel. Like the mink and weasel, 

 he butchers for the sheer love of killing, even when 

 he isn't hungry. He and the duck-hawk are the 

 Prussians of the bird kingdom. 



The duck-hawk, fortunately, is rather rare, or at 

 least it is rare in settled communities, because it 

 builds its nest, or its apology for a nest, on the 

 ledges of rock precipices (like the golden eagle), and 

 consequently more or less requires a mountain 

 country to breed in. The duck-hawk (which is 

 seventeen inches long, considerably smaller than 

 the "hen-hawk" or goshawk) belongs to the falcon 

 family — it is the Falco peregrinus anatum, and prac- 

 tically identical with the European peregrine falcon 

 of the romantic days of falconry, those heroic days 

 of old which we of the modern high-power rifle and 

 soft-nosed expanding bullet think so cruel and 

 bloody. The falcons differ from the hawks some- 

 what in their bills and talons, which are even better 

 adapted for tearing and seizing prey, and in the 

 relatively greater length and pointed character of 

 their wings. The peregrine falcon, or duck-hawk, is 

 undoubtedly a splendid bird if you judge him solely 

 by strength and speed and cunning in flight. He 

 most often seizes his prey on the wing, and now 

 that water-fowl are scarce he takes about any birds 

 he encounters, dropping upon them with a sudden- 

 ness that leaves them no chance for escape. 



The duck-hawks often nest year after year in the 

 same place, apparently either the same birds or 

 young of the parent birds returning to the familiar 

 cliff. On Sugar Loaf, a curious formation near 



