io. 4 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 229 
Repeated accounts of this sort, spring and fall, induce us 
greatly to suspect that house-swallows have some strong attach- 
ment to water, independent of the matter of food ; and, though 
they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal 
themselves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncom- 
fortable months of winter. 
One of the keepers of Wolmer Forest sent me a peregrine 
falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as it was 
devouring a wood-pigeon. The haggard-falcon is a noble 
species of hawk seldom seen in the southern counties. In 
winter 1767, one was killed in the neighboring parish of Far- 
ringdon, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North Wales.’ 
Since that time I have met with none till now. The specimen 
mentioned above was in fine preservation, and not injured by 
the shot: it measured forty-two inches from wing to wing, and 
' twenty-one from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and a 
half standing weight. This species is very robust, and wonder- 
fully formed for rapine; its breast was plump and muscular ; 
its thighs long, thick, and brawny; and its legs remarkably 
short and well set: the feet were armed with most formidable, 
sharp, long talons: the eyelids and cere of the bill were 
yellow ; but the irides of the eyes dusky; the beak was thick 
and hooked, and of a dark color, and had a jagged process 
near the end of the upper mandible on each side: its tail, or 
train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body; yet the 
wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of the train. 
From its large and fair proportions it might be supposed to 
have been a female ; but I was not permitted to cut open the 
specimen. For one of the birds of prey, which are usually 
lean, this was in high case: in its craw were many barley- 
corns, which probably came from the crop of the wood-pigeon, 
on which it was feeding when shot ; for voracious birds do not 
eat grain, but, when devouring their quarry, with undistinguish- 
1 See my tenth, eleventh, and twelfth letters to that gentleman. 
