Of course the stoop takes it out of the hawk also. But then the hawk has two great advantages. She is the faster bird, and she is better at the "throw up." This is the counter-move by which she responds to the shifts of the quarry. A good long-winged hawk, after an unsuccessful stoop, immediately shoots up to a great height above the place where the stoop was intended to take effect. She rebounds, as it were, from the rapid descent, glancing upwards with wide open wings to a new position of advantage. And herein she has the advantage of the greyhound. The farther the dog is thrown out, the more laborious is the work of getting into position for the next attack. But a falcon may come past her quarry with as much way on as ever she can command. That impetus need not carry her away to a disadvantageous position, but, on the contrary, to one where she is still admirably placed for a fresh stoop. By throwing up well and with good judgment, and sometimes a little luck, a good hawk after once getting well above her rook will keep the command of the air for the rest of the flight. The quarry may throw up too; but if his pursuer makes the most of her first advantage, he will always find her above him after he has done so. It may be that she will be very wide of him. But distance calculated in mere length counts for comparatively little. It is the distance in height from the earth below that makes all the difference. Consequently, if the rook persists in trying to keep the air, and Lady Long-wing has the pluck and the condition to keep up the chase, the time comes sooner or later when the shift is not strong enough or not quick enough. Then as you watch the two birds--or the two little specks, as they may by that time have become--the lines along which they are moving will be seen to converge and not separate again. There will be a shout of jubilation from below. "Who-whoop": it is the death-cry. One of those eight sharp talons which, half hid by feathers, arm the lower side of the hawk's body has hooked itself into some bone, or at least some fleshy part, of the victim's body. Then from the under side of the slim falcon, as she spreads her wings and sinks nearer into sight, will be seen hanging a confused mass of black shiny feathers. As the two birds--victor and vanquished--come down to earth, the former will sometimes be seen tightening her grasp or catching hold with the second foot. At anyrate, within less than a second after they have reached the ground, the deadly clutch of the conqueror will be on the head of the conquered. In another second or two the point of her beak will have broken the victim's neck at the top of the vertebral column. No man can encompass the killing of a rook so speedily and neatly as can a peregrine. Within a marvellously short time after the last stoop was delivered, the head of the captured bird droops inert from the dislocated neck, and life is completely extinct. [Illustration: _Death of a Rook_]