I watched the hawks in their mad love chase, and then the tiercel saw the doves, closed his pinions, and fell from a thousand feet to the terrified doves in a few seconds. I have seen scout machines diving in France, but the peregrines, one behind the other in echelon, seemed to stoop with greater speed than the fastest of them. In fear the gulls fled to their crannies in the cliff-face. There was a flurry of feathers as the male hawk struck the leading pigeon; he dropped it, swerved, and struck the other, while his mate clawed his first kill. Upwards, with the dove suspended in her talons, she climbed. A heavy black raven flapped to the dove whose blood was staining the green sea as it lifted in the swell. The peregrine screamed--_check, check, check_--and dropped on the heavier pirate, who, as the hawk came above him, rolled over and held up his javelin beak. The hawk slipped, regained height, stooped again, was met with the great beak, and then flashed away chattering towards the mainland, followed by his mate. The next moment a crowd of gulls splashed and quarrelled over the dead pigeon, the raven a sombre fellow amid their whiteness; the rabbits crept from their burrows; and in the sunshine the tiny pippits jerked towards heaven in weak flight, then fell, singing and trilling. And life in the springtime went on. HAWK NOTES A cloud from the sea dragged over the mountain so that the buzzards wheeling in the upper air were hidden, and only their mewling cries came down. I suppose they outsoared the cold autumnal vapours; they often sail in the heavenly freeness a mile and more above the earth, broad wings for ever lifted by the winds. These big hawks are quite common in the West Country; I have seen as many as ten pairs on the wing at once. They are clumsy in the lower air, flapping heavily and beating over the slopes of heather and gorse very much like an owl. But when they attain to high solitude they are transformed. Sometimes as they turn the sun throws a golden lustre on their pinions. All the British hawks that I have seen--kestrel, sparrowhawk, merlin, peregrine falcon, buzzard, and marsh harrier--hover to find their prey. Their hovering may be prolonged, or for an instant only. The kestrel leans on the wind, the sparrowhawk (I am referring to those that hunt in the open) dashes down wind, swings up, poises, then dashes down at his prey. The peregrine falcon hangs high above the cliff slope or the inland fields. He and his mate, hunting together, are like two black anchor-heads. Even in a considerable wind they are not disturbed. They remain fixed till something is seen, and then they fall, head first, swifter and swifter, plunging at an enormous rate. If they are within three hundred yards, and the day is still, you may hear the hissing of the stoop. They strike their victim and smash it, or miss altogether, abandoning after three failed stoops. The male usually follows the female should she miss.