Note 75 — PROGRESSION IN OR THROUGH THE AIR.

“The wing is short, broad, convex, and rounded in grouse, partridges, and other rasores; long, broad, straight, and pointed in most pigeons. In the peregrine falcon it is acuminate, the second quill being longest, and the first little shorter; and in the swallows this is still more the case, the first quill being the longest, the rest rapidly diminishing in length.”—Macgillivray, Hist. Brit. Birds, vol. i. p. 82. “The hawks have been classed as noble or ignoble, according to the length and sharpness of their wings; and the falcons, or long-winged hawks, are distinguished from the short-winged ones by the second feather of the wing being either the longest or equal in length to the third, and by the nature of the stoop made in pursuit of their prey.”—Falconry in the British Isles, by F. H. Salvin and W. Brodrick. Lond. 1855, p. 28.