PEREGRINE FALCON. 59 



apparently from the rock itself. The presence of birds' 

 bones in or around the nest seems to be the rule, and upon 

 the top of the cliffs near St. Abb's Head, where Selby visited 

 a nest, he noticed, scattered in great profusion, the castings 

 of the Falcons. Those examined were almost wholly com- 

 posed of the bones and feathers of Gulls and other water- 

 birds, but others were mixed with the feathers of Partridges 

 and the bones of Rabbits and Leverets. 



Falcons, and probably all birds-of-prey which feed on 

 animals covered with feathers or fur, and thus swallow a 

 quantity of indigestible matter, relieve themselves by throw- 

 ing it up in the form of castings, which are oblong balls, 

 consisting of the feathers or hair and bones forcibly com- 

 pressed together. This habit of reproducing from the 

 stomach the remains of the last meal is common to the 

 Shrikes, the Swallows and most of the insectivorous birds 

 which feed on Coleopteva, or those insects possessed of 

 strong and hard external wing-cases. In like manner also 

 the Crows, when they have been feeding upon corn, reject 

 pellets consisting of the husks. 



This species has been not inaptly termed percgrinus, since 

 it has been found in very distant parts of the world ; though 

 the term was originally applied by the older authors to the 

 young birds on their southward migration in autumn. In 

 this country it still breeds, chiefly on the cliff's of the sea- 

 coast throughout the south of England from Cornwall to 

 Kent. Formerly there was annually a nest in the cliff" at 

 Hunstanton, and one in the steeple of Corton Church in 

 Suffolk, and it is registered by Mr. More as breeding until 

 a few years ago in the district of the Severn, where, indeed, 

 it may possibly still be found as an occasional permanent 

 inhabitant. On the coast of Wales, particularly in the 

 south-west and north of the Principality, it may be regarded 

 as breeding regularly ; and again from Yorkshire northward 

 to the Shetlands, but it is far more thinly scattered in the 

 south than in the north of Great Britain, and is not at all 

 unfrequent on the rocky headlands of the north and west 

 coasts. In the mountainous parts of this island, the Pere- 



