THE PEREGRINE FALCON 65 



to a bird which can make its way through the air at a 

 speed of well over a mile a minute, a journey of thirty or 

 forty miles is little thought of. Black Grouse were taken 

 by a pair of Peregrines to their nest on the Bass Rock, 

 though a Black-cock is fully the equal of a Falcon in weight. 

 As an instance of the wing power of the Peregrine, one of 

 these birds belonging to Henry IV of France escaped 

 from its confinement at Fontaincbleau, and was found 

 twenty-four hours later in Malta, 1350 miles away. As 

 it is unlikely that the Falcon was noted immediately on 

 its arrival, its speed must have been prodigious, even 

 allowing for winds in its favour, and probably averaged 

 over seventy miles an hour. 



The Peregrine Falcon is an early nester among birds 

 of prey in this country — second only to the Golden 

 Eagle — and the Falcon may be brooding by April 10th. 

 The nesting site usually chosen is a rocky hill face, such 

 a hill face with a loch lying beneath being specially 

 favoured, and the nest is on a ledge or cavity of rock. 

 MacGillivray stated in his classical work of the nineteenth 

 century that the nest was a bulky structure, a statement 

 which is difficult of explanation coming from so great 

 an authority, for as far as my experience goes, the Pere- 

 grine makes no nest at all, but merely scrapes out a shallow 

 hollow on the ledge and here deposits its eggs. As the 

 same nest is sometimes used year after year, the hollow in 

 time becomes lined with the bones of many bird victims, 

 but this is the only " nest " that one finds. Sometimes 

 the Peregrine may take possession of a Raven's nest for 

 the rearing of the brood, but not without a battle, for the 

 Raven is perhaps the one bird which does not hesitate 

 to show fight where the Falcon is concerned. The eggs 

 usually number three or four, but on one occasion I found 

 five in an cyric. They are extremely handsome, rich red 

 blotches being distributed lavishly over a ground colour 

 of brown. The duties of incubation are undertaken by 



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