124 THE NESTS AND EGGS OF 



The breeding haunts of the White Jer-Falcon are prin- 

 cipally confined to woodlands, to ranges of cliffs near the 

 sea, and possibly to the ridges and steep banks of the 

 barren grounds of Arctic America. Of the pairing habits 

 of this bird nothing is known. It is not in any way 

 gregarious, and appears to live a more or less solitary 

 life except when the necessities of the breeding season 

 compel a closer companionship between the sexes. The 

 nest of this Falcon, often made whilst deep snow is still 

 upon the ground, is a mere hollow on a ledge or shelf 

 of some cliff; or it is said the bird sometimes takes 

 possession of the deserted nest of some other species, 

 usually one at the top of a pine or other tree. Whether 

 it ever makes a nest for itself is not clear : Macfarlane 

 infers that it does. It has also been known to nest on 

 the rough ground at the side of a steep hill. It is very 

 noisy, pugnacious, and daring when disturbed at the 

 nest ; Sir John Richardson gives a graphic account of 

 the actions of a pair of these Falcons that resented his 

 interference with their nest, which was built on a lofty 

 precipice on the shores of Point Lake in lat. 65 J°. 



Range of egg colouration and measurement : 

 The eggs of the White Jer-Falcon are three or four in 

 number. They are creamy-white in ground colour, but 

 so closely freckled, clouded, blotched, and washed with 

 surface markings, that but little of this is ever visible. 

 The surface markings, are orange-brown, brick-red, and 

 dark reddish-brown in colour ; the underlying ones clear 

 lilac-gray. The usual type has the surface colour more 

 or less evenly washed over the entire surface ; in another 

 type the colour is broken up into blotches and spots, 

 many of them confluent, and most numerous on the 

 larger end of the ^g% ; whilst a third and much rarer 

 type has most of the spots gray underlying ones with 

 an occasional pale brown surface mark here and there. 



