VIRTUE AND VICE 259 



of brilliant performers whose names have come down with 

 honour in the annals of falconry, were rather under than over 

 the average size. One of the most famous peregrines of this 

 century (Aurora by name) was of such an intermediate size 

 that her owner for some considerable time mistook the sex. 

 As for merlins, I do not remember any exceptionally big one 

 that was not particularly stupid and remarkably slow. A 

 specially small jack, however, is by no means invariably a 

 duffer. 



So much for the appearance of hawks when standing at ease 

 on the block or perch. As soon as they are put on the wing 

 the task of distinguishing between them in point of merit be- 

 comes very much more easy. The good hawk, when in good 

 condition, has a buoyancy in the air which is wanting in the 

 other. She flies with less effort, and as if she liked the exercise. 

 It seems as natural to her to fly in a slanting line upwards as 

 on a level. When she spreads her wings and sails along they 

 are held out to the very farthest possible extent, and kept 

 "flat": that is to say, the tips are on a level with the back of 

 the head, or even a little above it. The fast flier does not 

 usually go along steadily through the air, moving, as a boating 

 man would say, on an even keel. On a windy day one wing is 

 often higher than the other, and her course swerves more or 

 less from time to time as she utilises or counteracts with a mar- 

 vellous art, not understood of men, the wayward pressure of 

 the disturbed air. If you have to choose between a hack hawk, 

 which makes her way along with regular beats of beautifully 

 even wings, like a heron or a dove, and one which hurls herself 

 forward in unexpected lines like a lapwing, by all means choose 

 the latter. Do not suppose that either lapwings or haggard 

 peregines go crooked by accident, or because they know no 

 better. They can go straight enough if they choose, and will 

 do so if it happens to be their game to play. But just as a 

 skater, having only one skate on the ice, can go along if he 

 moves in divergent lines but not if he attempts to keep a 

 straight line, so it seems that by a sort of zigzaggy course 

 more pace can be got up than by mere plodding straight- 

 forward work. It is only after watching many hundreds of 

 flights that a man can hope even to begin to understand how 

 birds, both pursuer and pursued, manceuvere in the air, trim- 

 ming their sails, so to speak, so as to increase to the utmost, 

 the one the momentum of her stoop, and the other the speed 

 and suddenness of its shift. 



