The same writer draws attention to a common fallacy: “It is,” he says,[8] “purely a matter of optical illusion to imagine that a smaller-sized bird is flying faster than a larger bird of similar shape and make; for example, a snipe on rising ground seems to go much faster than a woodcock, similarly a teal than a duck, and possibly this may be so for a short distance, but put up the first two together, and also the last two, and let there be a peregrine after them--as I have seen many times--and the scene is amazing to a man who is not a falconer, as the smaller bird is overhauled first every time by the falcon, and presumably they are all trying their hardest.... I have dozens of times put up a peregrine over ponds and marshes where teal and ducks were sitting together, and then flushed the wild fowl all simultaneously. In every case without any exception the first bird overhauled and brought to the ground has been a teal and in the case of a long flight, when every bird has been flying for its life, the further they go the further the teal lag behind the wild ducks. The same remarks apply to woodcock and snipe, to black game and grouse, to pheasants and partridges--all of which I have flushed simultaneously in front of hawks.” In dealing with the same point in a letter written to me, Major Radclyffe makes the following interesting observations: “... Few people realize that a pheasant flies much faster than a partridge when they have both been going a short distance. If you flush an old cock pheasant and a covey of partridges together in a big field of turnips, you will see the partridges are quickest ‘off the mark’ and away with a bit of a lead, but the pheasant will catch them, and be first over the fence if they have 200 or 300 yards to go. “Again take as an example a woodcock and a snipe. I have several times flushed these two birds together, and in no time the woodcock has left the snipe far behind him, and yet I believe that ninety-nine sportsmen out of a hundred would say the snipe flies faster than the woodcock. “I have seen woodcocks give my hawks some great long-distance flights before they are overtaken and turned; but a snipe has no show at all when trying to keep ahead of a peregrine or merlin in straight flight.” In his letter to the _Field_ already referred to, Major Radclyffe further says: “There is no doubt whatever that the heavier bird of similar type is far the faster on the wing when once it gets going.”