“All falcons are very careful not to risk touching anything with their wings, hence a falcon will never really stoop at a bird on the ground with an idea of catching it, but they will keep stooping just over a bird they can see on the ground in the hope of flushing it, and then they will catch it in a minute.
“I have seen falcons and hawks break their wings by striking the smallest twig on the branch of a tree when misjudging a stoop at a bird.
“Therefore, you can imagine how easily a hawk would smash its wing if it attempted this, to hit a heavy bird like a grouse or pheasant going at terrific speed.
“If you threw a lawn-tennis ball against a falcon’s wing coming at you at the rate of over a hundred miles per hour, and hit its wing-bone, that hawk would never fly again.
“I have many times in my life, when casting lightly with a very small trout rod, just touched the wing of a swift or swallow with the tip of the rod. I never broke a rod thus, but nearly always broke the bird’s wing. I think, when you come to consider these things, you will see that a hawk dare not strike the smallest bird with its wing.
“It uses its beak only to finish off a bird on the ground, and this she does by breaking the bird’s neck with its beak.
“I have lived amongst wild and trained hawks all my life, and I can assure you the above facts are true.”
The reference in the above letter to the peregrine killing a grouse by striking it with its talon reminds me of the following interesting note in _Birds of Great Britain_ (5 volumes), published by the author, John Gould, F.R.S., in 1873.
“Evidence forwarded to Mr. James Burdett, keeper to the Earl of Craven.... On dissecting a coot I saw taken and dropped by a peregrine falcon, I found the neck dislocated at the third joint from the head and an appearance as if the sharp point of the hind claw had penetrated the brain at the occiput.”
Captain C. F. A. Portal, D.S.O., writes as follows:
“I have seen many dozens of game-birds struck down by trained peregrines within 50 yards of me, and I can definitely state that the hawk _invariably_ aims a blow _with the talons_ at his quarry....
“So true is a peregrine’s aim that he generally gets home with both his _hind_ talons somewhere near the middle of the quarry’s back, but often he hits a wing and breaks it, and occasionally he breaks the neck in the same way. I have examined hundreds of birds (partridges) killed by hawks, and I have always found the mark of two hind talons or one of them. The decapitation is generally performed within a few seconds of the hawk’s alighting on the dazed or crippled victim. It is performed by one powerful wrench of the beak. No peregrine will eat or even pluck a living bird.... In my experience it is a rare thing for a peregrine to strike a bird dead in the air. It does occasionally happen that the blow falls on the head or neck, but what generally happens is that the bird is thrown violently to the ground with a wing broken or the back dislocated. The concussion with the ground dazes it, and the hawk quickly drops down upon it and kills it with its beak.