76 JOURNAI. OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



places overhung the rocks. At the foot an ice-cold spring furnished 

 refreshment before we began our walk towards the locality where 

 the Hawks were supposed to be breeding. After a quarter of an 

 hour of painful clambering over round pebbles and rough rocks, we 

 were rewarded by seeing three Duck Hawks come sailing out over 

 the precipice, often disappearing and again wheeling out into full 

 view. For many minutes we watched the big and graceful birds, 

 and then they alighted on some low dead branches, staying in sight 

 while we examined them at our leisure with our field glasses. 



The Peregrine Falcon, or Duck Hawk, is practically the same 

 bird with which the readers of Scott's novels are familiar, at that 

 time trained for tlie sport of hawking, as it is doubtless tlie most 

 powerful bird of prey for its l^ulk that flies, and its courage is not 

 less than its strength. The birds we saw doubtless formed a family 

 consisting of two young birds and perhaps the female, the male at 

 the time probal)ly l:)eing absent on a foraging expedition. Tlieir 

 breeding here has been watched from year to year l)y local observers, 

 and it is said that at least one of tlie adult birds stays in the vicinity 

 of the cliffs during the winter. In cold weather this species of 

 Hawks as a rule moves southward and in the fall it is not unusual 

 to see specimens along the coast and art)un(l Casco Bay. 



On Grand Manan the Northern Raven breeds in greater abun- 

 dance than in any place on the Maine coast. In this section the 

 bird nests as a rule among inaccessible jirecipices elsewhere build- 

 ing its habitation in trees on lonely islands. I walked out to a cove 

 where on tlie Hanking cliffs I was assured that the Raven makes its 

 home. I was then able to get nothing more than a passing glimpse 

 of just one sable bird as it disappeared around a headland. Later 

 I watched the same cliffs for more Ravens, but it was not until I 

 was leaving the island on the F^astport steamer that my desire was 

 realized. Higli over the bold headland which forms the northern- 

 most bound of the island three Ravens soared four hundred feet at 

 the lea.st estimate from the bay beneath. The great black birds, 

 suggesting Crows, but twice as large and very graceful on the wing, 

 fiew back and forth, never going far from the outermost cliff, at 



