How silently and swiftly the birds of prey come wheeling round the curve of the cliff, and, skimming the ground, pick up and carry off one of a covey before even its companions can collect their wits to raise an alarm. So in India I have seen the laggar falcon take up a quail and pass on like some shadow, without disturbing the rest, as silent, literally, as the wind, and with an incredible speed. Yet to watch an eagle beating round the base of a hill there seems too much leisureliness for speed. But time its flight, and you will find that though the beats of its wings seem at long intervals it is really going by with great velocity. Its home, and its favourite watchtower, for birds of prey have always some one spot to which, when they wish to be idle, they find their way, is some lofty crag. There seated aloft, they overlook the lowlands where they find their food, without danger of molestation while in repose. For it is always up on the peaks, sometimes looking seaward over the nations of the sea-fowl, but generally inland, where, when the clouds leave it an unbroken prospect, it can sit, like some fierce old warden of the marches, to control the tribes of the valley. It feeds by choice upon lambs, on fawns and hares; so that, though the ptarmigan and grouse pay tribute, they are not harried by the eagle. When they wander lower down the slopes the game-birds come within the earldom of the falcon, the peregrine, a terrible bird, as fierce as it is swift, and for ever ranging the moors in quest of food. I have known it, in India, chase its quarry right among the tents of the camp, kill it within a few feet of the tethered horses and their attendants, and carry off its prey before there was sense enough among the onlookers to snatch up a gun. When trained they are still as highly prized as of old in England, and at Dholpur I have seen it flown, from the hand, at both egret and duck, and marvelled, the last time as much as the first, at the terrific velocity of its swoop. It seems, too, as if the bird struck its prey with its beak, whereas it always strikes with its talons, striking and clutching almost simultaneously. The fearful impact breaks the quarry's back, and enables the falcon, if it chooses, to continue its flight with the dead bird in its grasp, without coming to the ground at all. In England, owing to increased cultivation and the enclosure [Illustration: "IN THE EARLDOM OF THE FALCON"]