A falcon towering in her pride of place.[65]
Again, he makes Bolingbroke boast that he would fight Mowbray
As confident as is the falcon’s flight
Against a bird.[66]
He notes how
A falcon towering in the skies,
Coucheth the fowl below with his wings’ shade,
Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies.[67]
The falcon generally employed in hawking was the female Peregrine, which was held to be more adapted for the purposes of sport than the male. The KESTREL is referred to by Shakespeare, under the local name of Staniel in the scene in Twelfth Night, where Malvolio, gulled by Maria, picks up and begins to guess at the meaning of the clever letter, Sir Toby and Fabian watching in concealment: