Robert Alan Moore, age 8, of Louisville, Kentucky, for his question:

Is there really a bird called the gyrfalcon?

You may not believe that King Arthur and the knights of his Round Table ever really existed. But your heart fills with pride to hear of their deeds and you know you must believe in their noble ideas. Experts say that we also must believe in the gyrfalcon, who was one of their favorite birds.

We say his odd name as if it were spelled jercan. And people have been calling the gyrfalcon by name since bold knights rode forth in the long ago Age of Chivalry. His family still lives in the cold Arctic regions. His children still are born in nests on the bleak, chilly tundra lands of Europe, Asia and America. There are about 50 cousins in the falcon bird family. And the biggest of them is the gyrfalcon. He also is one of the fastest and one of the hardest to tame.

Mr. Gyrfalcon stands two feet tall on his taloned toes. He has a strong hooked beak and his round yellow eyes glare at the world like a fierce general ready to start a furious battle. As a rule, his soft feathery coat is speckled all over with pale and pearly gray freckles. But sometimes gryfalcons of snowy white, dark gray or even sooty black may hatch from the same nest.

The falcons are fierce birds of prey that hunt live meat. The keen glaring eyes of the gyrfalcon may be scanning the landscape for a bouncing bunny. More likely, he is scanning the skies for a carefree bird. When he spots a moving target, he starts his chase and any bunny or bird on the wing who escapes him is lucky. Up he flies with fast wingbeats never pausing a moment to glide or soar. As a rule, he climbs far above his victim. Then he folds his strong wings to his sides and dives down, like a speeding arrow. Chances are, he strikes his moving target in mid air and grabs the struggling victim in his mighty talons.

In the long ago days of knighthood, falcons were trained to hunt game birds for their human owners. It takes lots of time and patience to train these freedom loving birds of prey. And the gyrfalcon is the most rebellious of them all. But when finally trained, experts claim that he is the best hunting falcon of them all. A hunter of olden days pampered his falcons and kept them in a cozy home called a mews. When he took his favorite bird out to hunt, he wore thick gloves and let the taloned falcon perch on his hands. The bird was blindfolded until the hunter spotted the right game bird. Then the hood was removed. The sharp eyed falcon swooped aloft, captured the game bird and brought it down to the hungry hunter. There are still people today who train falcons to hunt.

The falcons are first cousins to the hawks and also to the garbage eating vultures. The birds of prey that live on live meat must be fast fliers, fast enough to outdistance their victims. The gyrfalcon is fast, but not quite the fastest of his falcon cousins. The speed king may be the peregrine who is a smaller falcon. This fellow hunts fasting wild ducks. Experts claim that his mini air dives reach 180 miles an hour. This fantastic speed may make the peregrine falcon the world's fastest flying bird. But the mighty gyrfalcon is almost as fast as the champ.