We calculate the probability distribution of a single component of peculiar
velocities due to cosmic strings, smoothed over regions with a radius of
several hβ1 Mpc. The probability distribution is shown to be Gaussian to
good accuracy, in agreement with the distribution of peculiar velocities
deduced from the 1.9 Jy IRAS redshift survey. Using the normalization of
parameters of the cosmic string model from CMB measurements, we show that the
rms values for peculiar velocities inferred from IRAS are consistent with the
cosmic string model provided that long strings have some small-scale structure.Comment: 17 pages, uses Latex, to appear in MNRAS, 1 Postscript figure
available on reques