THE PEREGRINE FALCON. 
43 
Once, when in close pursuit of a woodcock, the hawk dashed 
through the drooping spray of a very large and fine weeping ash- 
tree at the Palls, and both the pursued and pursuer, striking 
against the stem of the tree, fell to the ground. We may attri- 
bute this accident to the closely-drooping branches screening the 
stem from sight ; for it is as surprising as interesting, to witness 
the extreme adroitness with which the woodcock avoids contact 
with the stems and branches, in its flight through a dense wood. 
In this instance, the woodcock was the first to recover. After 
being allowed a little breathing time, it was able to “ shuffle off ” 
to the bank of the adjacent glen, and was generously permitted 
to make its escape. The hawk, when lifted up, was bleeding at 
the mouth, but soon recovered. On the other occasion, both 
woodcock and falcon struck against a large stone in the river at 
Stormont (county of Down), when the former, though not killed, 
was quite disabled ; the latter was not much the worse. Prom three 
to four brace and a half of woodcocks have been killed in the 
course of a forenoon by my friend's hawks. During a winter, 
about fifty brace have been killed by his best falcon in the neigh- 
bourhood of Belfast. 
These falcons have been flown at, and have put into cover, 
black game (old hens and young males, but not the old black 
cock), red grouse, partridge, land-rails, wood quests, rooks, &c.* 
They have occasionally been flown at herons, which, in the olden 
time, were the chief objects of pursuit, but were never brought 
up regularly to fly at them. 
Of “ Memorabilia ” it may be noticed, that once, when for the 
purpose of grouse-shooting, Mr. Sinclairewas encamped at Mounter- 
lowney (on the borders of Tyrone and Londonderry), a grouse, pur- 
sued by a falcon, was put down among the ropes of the tents. On 
another occasion, an old cock grouse was put into the house of the 
gamekeeper (Hercules Dean), in the Belfast mountains, and showed 
fight against the falcon, — the only instance in which my friend 
ever saw this done on the part of the pursued, — but a second 
* Falcons, or female birds, are preferred to males, from being “more wicked.” 
They will readily fly at rooks or sea-gulls (L. ridibundus ) in the fields, which the 
males will not always condescend to do. 
