356 FALCON AND EAGLE GROUP 



buff streaked with dark brown ; the legs being livid bluish grey. The 

 slate-grey back of the atlult is only gradually acquired ; and in very 

 old birds the markings on the breast tend to diminish and finall\- more 

 or less completcl}' disappear. The white down of the nestling is 

 unusually long. 



Having an almost world-wide tlistribution, although visiting the 

 warmer parts of its range, such as India and Burma, only during the 

 winter months, the peregrine frequents districts where water is abundant, 

 and in England at the present da)- chiefly nests on sea-cliffs, although 

 in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland it is still to be found building on inland 

 cliffs. Very rarely in our own islands does it forsake cliffs for trees as 

 nesting-resorts, although it is recorded to have done so in Ireland, and 

 in parts of North America it is forced to select trees owing to the 

 absence of cliffs. Of late }'ears the s[)ccies is stated to have become 

 less uncommon on the coasts of the south of England and Wales than 

 was the case some time previously ; and in Ireland it is comparativeh' 

 common as a resident bird both on the sea-cliffs and the higher 

 mountains of the interior. Indeed, coinparati\-cly few of its Irish 

 breeding- places have been deserted ; although in England the birds 

 have been completely exterminated in their old haunts. From Great 

 Britain the peregrine betakes itself eastward or southward in autumn 

 in search of warmer winter-quarters. 



With their characteristic adroitness in giving appropriate names to 

 animals the Americans call the peregrine the "duck-hawk " ; ducks and 

 wading-birds in many parts of its resorts constituting its chief prey, 

 although it often feeds on grouse, pigeons, and partridges, and has 

 been seen to kill a snipe, while it will sometimes not disdain to 

 make a meal off quite small birds. 



Peregrines commence breeding in April, and are \er\' faithful to their 

 old haunts, to which (if unmolested) they return }-ear after year ; while 

 when one or other of a pair is slain, the survivor is generally not long 

 in finding a new mate. When breeding on more or less inaccessible 

 cliffs, peregrines give themselves little or no trouble in the matter of 

 nest-making, the two, three, or occasional 1}' four handsome eggs being 

 laid on the bare rock, with only such protection against rolling off as 

 may be afforded by the debris of former meal.s. The eggs, of which 

 the longer diameter ranges a little on either side of a couple of inches, 

 and the shorter a fraction less or more than an inch and a half, are 

 subject to great variation in colouring ; but may be described generally 

 as being clouded with some shade of bright chestnut, thickly overlaid 

 with mottlings of dark rufous, which in some instances tends almost 



