Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/67

 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 Falls, 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. From 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. Sinclaire was 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 wall readily fly at rooks or sea-gulls (L. ridibundus) in the fields, which the males will not always condescend to do.