THE FIFTH SUB-FAMILY.—THE FALCONS (Falconinæ).
In all the true Falcons and in the allied genera the bill, which was simply festooned in the Eagles, Kites, and Buzzards, becomes very distinctly toothed, and in some genera even two teeth are present. In these birds, too, the cere is strongly shown, and is generally of a bright yellow colour.
THE CUCKOO-FALCONS (Baza).
These birds have the soft plumage of a Honey-Kite, and yet possess the toothed bill of a Falcon, so that they are placed among the Falconinæ; but, because of their Kite-like plumage, they follow close to the Perns and Honey-Kites. They not only possess the usual tooth of the Falcon’s bill, but a second is actually present, so that there is no difficulty in recognising a member of the genusBaza.The American Cuckoo-Falcons (Harpagus) are the only other birds of prey which have a double-toothed bill.
The name of “Cuckoo”-Falcon has been given to these birds on account of their actual resemblance to a Cuckoo, in the grey colour of the back with the reddish bars on the under surface. They have also a very large yellow eye. The distribution of the genusBazais singular, and it is one of those forms which does not occur in Europe, but exhibits the affinity which is often seen between certain African and Indian birds. About nine different kinds are known, each having its own limited range. Thus Swainson’s Cuckoo-Falcon (B. cuculoides[201]) is found in the forest country from Senegambia to Gaboon in West Africa, and is replaced byBaza Verreauxiin the forests of Natal. In Madagascar a third species (B. madagascariensis) occurs, and on crossing the Indian Ocean a fourth kind (B. ceylonensis) is found inhabiting Ceylon. Malacca and the Sunda Islands have their own Baza sumatrensis, the PhilippinesB. magnirostris, the island of CelebesB. erythrothorax, the Moluccas and New GuineaB. Reinwardti, and Northern Australia,B. subcristata. None of these birds appear to be migratory, and their geographical distribution is interesting when traced out on a map of the world.
From their shy and retiring habits, but little has been recorded of their life. Verreaux’s Cuckoo-Falcon is said to frequent the dense bush in Natal, and Captain Harford shot one in that country while engaged upon an ant-hill, and their food appears to consist of Grasshoppers and Mantidæ, while another observer took from the stomach of one of these birds remains of a green Mantis, of Locusts, and of a Chameleon. This species is one of the largest of the Cuckoo-Falcons, measuring seventeen inches in length, and the colour is dark ashy-grey; deeper ash-colour on the head and crest; the sides of the face, throat, and chest, are clear ashy; the breast white, banded across with pale rufous brown; the under tail-coverts being pure white; both the wings and tail are barred with dark brown. The sexes of these birds differ very little in size.
THE FALCONETS (Microhierax[202]).
This name is applied to a genus of tiny Falcons, which are peculiar to the Indian region. One of them, the Indian Falconet (Microhierax cærulescens), is found in the Himalayas and the Burmese countries. A second one is peculiar to Assam, a third to the Philippine Islands, and a fourth to the interior of China, while the fifth and remaining species is found in the Malayan Peninsula and the Sunda Islands.
Not one of these little Hawks is seven inches in length, and even to this day there are many authors who think that they are Butcher-birds or Shrikes, and not Hawks at all. They are, however, true Falcons, though of very small size, and are said to be used by native chiefs for hawking insects and Button-quails, being thrown from the hand like a ball; but this story has been discredited of late, the Besra, a small Sparrow-Hawk, being probably the bird alluded to. The Falconets are known to sit solitary on high trees, and according to native accounts they feed on small birds and insects.
THE PEREGRINE FALCON (Falco peregrinus[203]).
This noble bird justifies his name ofperegrinus, by his distribution over the earth’s surface. The ordinary Peregrine, which is still found in suitable places breeding on British coasts, is met with all over Europe and Northern Asia, ranging into South Africa and India in winter, extending throughout China to the Sunda Islands, and the Philippine Archipelago. In North America he is also widely distributed, and is as plentiful as in Europe. In the southern hemisphere the Peregrines, though strictly of the same type as the European bird, are always darker in colour, and have blacker faces and heads. The Australian Peregrine is calledFalco melanogenys,[204]and extends its range from the Australian continent to New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, and as far north as Java. In South Africa the resident Peregrine is a very small, dark-coloured bird, and is calledFalco minor. This species is also met with in North-eastern Africa, and even ranges into the Mediterranean, as it has been shot in Rhodes, Sardinia, and Morocco. Again, in Chili, another dark-faced form occurs, theFalco nigriceps,[205]not unlike its Australian relative.
To write a history of the Peregrine Falcon would be almost to write a history of falconry, andalthough it would be beyond the limits of the present work to enter deeply into the subject, a few words must be said about it here. The art of falconry probably came from the East, where it is still practised, and an ancient bas-relief was found by Sir Austen Layard, among the ruins of Khorsabad, depicting a falconer with a Hawk on his wrist, thus proving the antiquity of the pursuit. In Great Britain it was formerly much in vogue, and in Salvin and Brodrick’s work on “Falconry in the British Islands” there will be found an interestingrésuméof the art, as performed in Great Britain, from ancient times down to the present. It is lamentable to think of the way in which these noble birds, once the pride and favourite of monarchs, are now shot down and classed as vermin. The strict way of preserving game which has been common of late years, and the general use of firearms, have, no doubt, been the chief causes of the destruction of the larger Falcons, and it will take some time to disabuse the vulgar prejudices of gamekeepers, and of some proprietors, as to the mistake that is made in killing off every kind of raptorial bird indiscriminately. A protest which was penned by Mr. G. E. Freeman, in his “Falconry,” is worthy of reproduction here:—“All Hawks, when they have a choice, invariably choose the easiest flight. This fact is of the last importance in the matter before us. I confess that I at once give it the chief place in this argument. Who has not heard of the Grouse disease? It has been attributed, sometimes respectively, and sometimes collectively, to burnt heather; to heather poisoned from the dressings put on Sheep; to the Sheep themselves cropping the tender shoots and leaves of the plant, and thus destroying the Grouse’s food; to the tape-worm; to shot which has wounded but not killed; and perhaps to other things besides. It may be, I doubt not, correctly referred to any or to all of these. Of this, however, there appears no question that from whatever cause it springs it ispropagated. A diseased parent produces a diseased child. Now, I say that when every Hawk is killed upon a large manor, the balance of Nature is forgotten, or ignored; and that Nature will not overlook an insult.Shewould have kept her wilds healthy; destroy her appointed instruments, and beware of her revenge!”
PEREGRINE FALCON.
PEREGRINE FALCON.
The Peregrine Falcon has always been celebrated with falconers for its superior dash and courage. The female is much the larger and more powerful bird, and is called the “Falcon,” the male being known as the “Tiercel.” The young birds reared from the nest are called “Eyes,” and the immature specimens, from their more rufous colour, are distinguished as the “Red Falcon” and the “Red Tiercel.” When a bird has been caught wild in the full plumage it is called “Haggard.” The principal flight of the “Falcon” was at the Heron, and many anecdotes are told of the encounters between these two antagonists in mid-air. The evidence of Falconers, however, goes to show that the impalement of the Hawk by the Heron’s bill is a rare occurrence, and it is only when the birds come to the ground that the presence of the man is required to rescue the Falcons from their dangerous foe. The Heron, on being pursued, endeavours to avoid his pursuer by mounting high into the air, the Falcon meanwhile doing his best to rise above him and strike the quarry to the ground. Generally,two Falcons were employed in the chase, and while the Heron avoided the stoop of one by changing his position suddenly, the other was ready to stoop from above, until, by a successful swoop, the Heron would be mastered and borne to the ground with the two Falcons in close embrace. Then was the time for the good falconer to be at hand to save his Hawks from the Heron. In a wild state the Peregrine feeds on Grouse of all kinds, Pheasants, Partridges, Ducks, Pigeons, Plovers, &c., but it does not so often visit the poultry-yard as the other Hawks, preferring the open country or the sea-coast. In this latter locality, the Falcon feeds on the various sea-birds, such as the Puffins, Auks, Guillemots, and as it flies back to its nest with food for its young, it will sometimes in very wantonness rip up a Gull or other sea-bird if it happens to get in the way as it rushes by. The nest is generally large, and composed of sticks and herbaceous plants, excepting in localities where none of the latter exist, when it is made of grass. The site chosen is some sea-cliff or high precipice inland, where there is sure to be some difficulty in reaching the nest, which is generally harried by means of a rope. They build in the same localities for years together, and Professor Newton gives an interesting record of such an occurrence,[206]when he mentions a hill in Lapland, where a pair of Falcons had a nest when it was visited by the French astronomical expedition in 1736, a nest being re-discovered in the same place in 1799 by Captain Skjöldebrand, and again by the late Mr. Woolley, in 1853. Near the site of its nest the Peregrine brooks no intruder, and will even attack an Eagle, an instance having been recorded of one of the latter birds being stunned and brought to the ground by a Peregrine, who broke its own wing in the attempt, and was liberated by the shepherds to mend its wing as best it could, in gratitude for having delivered their aquiline enemy into their hands.
HOODED FALCON.
HOODED FALCON.
In Holland, where until recent years hawking was largely carried on under the auspices of the king, there is a well-known place, called Valkenswaard, where a good many Hawks are trapped every autumn during migration, and it is from the neighbourhood of this village that many of the most celebrated falconers have come. At the same time England has also produced many celebrated adepts at the art, which is generally carried on from father to son; and one of the Barr family, with a high reputation as a falconer, a few years ago exhibited his trained birds in the neighbourhood of London. The writer has also seen some fine sport in Huntingdonshire, with Lord Lilford’s Hawks, in a large extent of open country near Great Gidding.
FALCON’S HOOD.
FALCON’S HOOD.
The male Peregrine is of a bluish-grey colour, narrowly barred with black, the wings darker; the cheeks, ear-coverts, and moustache, black, the entire sides of the head being sometimes of this dark aspect; underneath, the body is white, with more or less of a reddish tinge, and crossed with black bars; tail grey, broadly barred with black and tipped with white. The length is about fifteen inches, that of the female about seventeen; and the wing is fourteen inches and a half in length instead of about twelve, as in the male. In plumage the hen bird is very similar, but is generally of a richer rufous hue below.
Besides the Peregrine Falcons there are a host of smaller species of the genusFalco, varying much from the above birds in size and style of colour, but of exactly the same form, and having much the same habits. The Hobby (Falco subbuteo) and the Merlin (F. æsalon) represent these smaller Falcons in the British Islands.
THE GREENLAND JER-FALCON (Hierofalco candicans).[207]
Besides the Peregrine, there were used in falconry, in England, the Noble, or Jer-Falcons, birds which were much prized, although they did not possess the same fire and dash in pursuit of their quarry exhibited by the former bird. There are five distinct kinds of these northern Jer-Falcons, without mentioning the Saker Falcon of South-eastern Europe, which also belongs to the genusHierofalco. The best known is the Greenland Jer-Falcon, which, as its name implies, is an inhabitant of Greenland and North America, young birds only occurring in the British Islands during migration. This species is nearly pure white in colour when fully adult, the back and wings retaining small spots of black, the entire head and breast, and especially the tail, becoming pure white as the bird gets older and loses the spots and bars which characterise its immature dress. An unfailing mark by which a Greenland Jer-Falcon can be told at any age is the light yellowish bill and cere, and the absence of arrow-shaped bars on the flanks, which in young birds are longitudinally streaked with brown, but are never barred. All the other Jer-Falcons have distinct bars across the flanks, as well as bluish bills and regularly barred tails. They are four in number, the Norway Jer-Falcon (H. gyrfalco), the Iceland Jer-Falcon (H. islandicus), Holböll’s Jer-Falcon (H. Holbölli), and the Labrador Jer-Falcon (H. labradorus). They are nearly all peculiar to the countries whose names they bear, the Norway bird not occurring anywhere out of Europe and Northern Asia, one specimen having been known to occur in England; it seems also to emigrate to Central Asia, as a single bird was procured during the last Yarkand Mission. All the Jer-Falcons have shorter toes than the Peregrines, in which the outer toe is very long, while in the other birds the outer and inner toes are about equal in length.
When in a wild state the Greenland Falcon feeds upon Ptarmigan, Geese, and on the sea-birds which frequent the cliffs where it takes up its abode. It evinces great courage in defending its nest.
THE KESTRELS (Cerchneis).
These form a group of short-toed Hawks, like the foregoing, but are much more numerous in species, and are found distributed all over the world, with the exception of some of the Oceanic Islands. More than twenty different kinds of Kestrel are recognised by naturalists, and they are more insect-feeding birds than the bolder and nobler Falcons which have just been spoken of. The commonest and best known of all is
THE COMMON KESTREL, OR WIND-HOVER (Cerchneis tinnunculus).[208]
This species gains its name of Wind-hover from a very pretty and graceful action with which it hangs suspended in the air, as if by a thread, keeping itself balanced by a constant winnowing of the air by its wings, and from this position it scans the ground below for a stray Mouse which may venture out of its hole, for mice and small birds constitute its principal food. It is frequently to be seen in the autumn hovering about a field of sheaved corn in the twilight, selecting a position about forty feet in the air, and occasionally stooping down on some prey in the stubble below. Should it not succeed in its pounce, it flies a little way in a few easy circles, and again commences to hover over a new part of the field. Insects also form a staple article of food to the Kestrel, who devours them while in full flight, passing its leg up to its bill, and the author has met with an instance of a Kestrel hawking for insects over a stream in the late evening. This Hawk is, unfortunately, often confounded through the ignorance of gamekeepers with the Sparrow-Hawk, and suffers consequently for the misdeeds of the latter, a fact much to be regretted, for it is a very useful bird, owing to the number of mice it destroys; indeed, a writer in Macgillivray’s “British Birds” computes that a single Kestrel would destroy upwards of ten thousand mice during its stay in Britain. It will also catch birds, but in limited numbers, and then generally only during the breeding season, when its young require constant food. Although of a less ferocious nature and aspect than the Falcons, the Kestrel, nevertheless, often shows forth his accipitrine temperament in a way that would scarcely be expected from his mild-looking dark eye,which has nothing of the ferocity of the yellow iris of the Sparrow-Hawk. Some young birds belonging to the writer, consisting of three females and a male, being left without food for a few hours by the person in whose charge they were placed, forgot their fraternal affection, and the larger hen birds set upon the male, who was not so large or strong as they were, and devoured him completely. When shooting in a sandy island near Heligoland also, the writer wounded a Dunlin, which floated on the water a considerable distance out at sea, and whilst waiting for the waves to bring the bird in to land a Kestrel hove in sight and made a swoop at the Dunlin, which the latter avoided by a rapid dive. Twenty-three times the Hawk repeated the manœuvre without success, until the poor little wader became exhausted, and was borne in the talons of his relentless foe towards the rock of Heligoland, about a mile off. This action had been witnessed also by Messrs Seebohm and Nicholson, from other parts of the same sandy island, and the latter kept pace with the Kestrel as it skirted the beach, in the hopes that it might cross the island when a shot would perhaps have caused the bird to drop his exhausted quarry. The Hawk, however, kept well out at sea, and regained his rocky home, though he was several times seen to pause in his flight and take a tighter grasp of his victim.
COMMON KESTREL.
COMMON KESTREL.
The nest of the Kestrel is often placed in towers and old buildings, and the bird is sometimes to be seen round the Nelson monument in Trafalgar Square, but a tree is more frequently the site selected, when an old Crow’s or Raven’s nest is often chosen. The hen bird, as is the case with most Hawks, sits very close, and will often require a stick or stone to be thrown close to the nest before it will move off, and the sudden drop which it gives is often the means of saving its life, as the chance of a successful shot is difficult. The eggs are from four to six in number, and are rather handsomely coloured, being blotched with rufous on a white ground, and are not unfrequently entirely rufous.
In most of the Kestrels the sexes differ conspicuously in colour, the females being barred. This is the case in the common species, where the male has a blue head and tail. In the size of the sexes there is little or no difference, each measuring about twelve inches and a half. In winter, when there are fewer mice and beetles about, the Kestrel shifts his quarters, and becomes to a certain extent migratory: at this season of the year it visits India and Africa, not extending, however, so far down the latter continent as some of the European birds go. It is abundant at certain seasons in north-eastern Africa and Senegambia, but seldom goes as far as the Cape. The most easterly occurrence that is known of the Common Kestrel is the island of Borneo, though it is a common bird in China. It should be mentioned, however, that the Kestrel is always darker in colour from Japan and China, so much so that many naturalists consider it to be a distinct species from the British bird.