CHAP. x.] PEREGRINE FALCON. 85 
cat with his wings, seized her in his powerful talons, with one 
foot planted firmly on her loins, and the other on her throat ; 
4nd nothing more was seen of poor Grimalkin except her skin, 
which the eagle left empty and turned inside out, like a rabbit- 
skin hung up by the cook, the whole of the carcass, bones and 
all, being stowed away in the bird’s capacious maw. The quan-. 
tity of meat taken from the stomach of an eagle killed on the 
mountain is sometimes perfectly incredible. I regret not having 
taken a note of the weight of mutton I once saw taken out of one 
I shot. 
We are occasionally visited, too, by the peregrine falcon, who 
makes sad havoc in the poultry-yard when he appears here. 
There is a nest of these birds always built in the inaccessible 
rocks of the Findhorn. Indeed, in the good old days of hawk- 
ing, when a gentleman was known by his hawk and hound, and 
even a lady seldom went abroad without a hawk on her gloved 
hand, the Findhorn hawks were always in great request. The 
peregrine seems often to strike down birds for his amusement; 
and I have seen one knock down and kill two rooks, who were 
unlucky enough to cross his flight, without taking the trouble to 
look at them after they fell. In the plain country near the sea- 
shore the peregrine frequently pursues the peewits and other 
birds that frequent the coast. The golden-plover, too, is a 
favourite prey, and affords the hawk a severe chace before he is 
caught. I have seen a pursuit of this kind last for nearly ten 
minutes, the plover turning and doubling like a hare before 
greyhounds, at one moment darting like an arrow into the air, 
high above the falcon’s head; at the next, sweeping round some 
bush or headland—but in vain. The hawk, with steady, relent- 
less flight, without seeming to hurry herself, never gives up the 
chace, till the poor plover, seemingly quite exhausted, slackens 
her pace, and is caught by the hawk’s talons in mid-air, and 
carried off to a convenient hillock or stone to be quietly devoured. 
Two years ago I brought a young peregrine falcon down from 
near the source of the Findhorn, where I found her in the pos- 
session of a shepherd’s boy, who fed her wholly on trout, For 
the first year the bird was of a dark brown colour above, with 
longitudinal spots on the feathers of her breast. On changing 
her plumage during the second autumn of her existence, she 
