34 AMID THE HIGH HILLS 
length of flight which the wi'iter is considering. 
It may be noticed that Major Radclyffe in the 
passage which I have quoted above (p. 28) seems 
to consider it may be possible that for a short 
distance the teal may be faster than the mallard, 
though he has no doubt that the latter bird will 
very soon overtake the former. 
The falconer has certainly more and better 
opportunities of seeing birds flying at their 
maximum rate of speed than any one else. " He 
also has," to use Captain Portal's words, " the 
advantage of possessing in his trained hawk a 
known quantity with which to compare the 
performances of other birds." 
Captain Portal has flown hawks at many diff'er- 
ent kinds of birds during the last fifteen years, 
and has made certain estimates which have been 
arrived at after a great deal of comparison and 
analysis of data obtained while hawking, shooting, 
flying in aeroplanes, travelling in cars and trains, 
and walking in the country. He says :^-" My 
figures cannot be correct for every member of 
each species, as I have seen one partridge in an 
October covey fly quite 15 per cent faster than any 
of its companions when all were at full speed. All 
1 Field, February 18, 1922, pp. 233-234. 
