“I have seen falcons and hawks break their wings by striking the smallest twig on the branch of a tree when misjudging a stoop at a bird.
“Therefore, you can imagine how easily a hawk would smash its wing if it attempted this, to hit a heavy bird like a grouse or pheasant going at terrific speed.
“If you threw a lawn-tennis ball against a falcon’s wing coming at you at the rate of over a hundred miles per hour, and hit its wing-bone, that hawk would never fly again.
“I have many times in my life, when casting lightly with a very small trout rod, just touched the wing of a swift or swallow with the tip of the rod. I never broke a rod thus, but nearly always broke the bird’s wing. I think, when you come to consider these things, you will see that a hawk dare not strike the smallest bird with its wing.
“It uses its beak only to finish off a bird on the ground, and this she does by breaking the bird’s neck with its beak.
“I have lived amongst wild and trained hawks all my life, and I can assure you the above facts are true.”
The reference in the above letter to the peregrine killing a grouse by striking it with its talon reminds me of the following interesting note in Birds of Great Britain (5 volumes), published by the author, John Gould, F.R.S., in 1873.
“Evidence forwarded to Mr. James Burdett, keeper to the Earl of Craven.... On dissecting a coot I saw taken and dropped by a peregrine falcon, I found the neck dislocated at the third joint from the head and an appearance as if the sharp point of the hind claw had penetrated the brain at the occiput.”
Captain C. F. A. Portal, D.S.O., writes as follows: