The Oologists' Record, March i, 1922. 



the bird left it. Soon my companion shouted to me that he had 

 the nest located, and I scrambled on and up to him. Most collectors 

 will understand my feelings when I say they were of joy and fear. 

 Joy that the nest was really there, and fear that it was unapproach- 

 able, for the cliff in front of me towered a sheer four hundred feet 

 above me and the cranny from which the bird had flown was 

 midway, with a sheer wall above and below. Difficult, almost 

 impossible, as our task appeared, we gathered our traps and started 

 to work our wa}' round the cliffs arid get to the top by some xneans 

 or other. Before we left we saw a Barn Owl fly across the face 

 of the cliff, making for a small cleft below the Falcon's nest. It had 

 nearly gained the entrance when, with a rush of wings which was 

 clearly audible to us where we stood, one of the Falcons dropped 

 from out of the sk3^ like a flash of lightning and all but knocked 

 the bird of wisdom end over end. I think this was just pure spite 

 on our account for, under ordinary circumstances, I think these 

 birds do not particularly bother their immediate neighbours. This 

 I know to be true of the Prairie Falcon. 



When we gained the top of the ridge, of which these cliffs 

 formed the face, we were amph^ repaid for the climb by the wonderful 

 panorama of mountains and desert country stretched out 'before 

 us. A stiff wind was blowing which was almost strong enough, 

 on the exposed top of the cliff, to carry us off our feet. A bit of 

 reconnoitring showed us there was only one half way practicable 

 as a means of approach. Growing in a cleft some twenty feet back 

 from the edge were several stunted and bushy trees, and we attached 

 our rope securely to these and I approached the edge and looked 

 over. I said the cliff was four hundred feet high but, looking 

 down, it seemed more than four times that. There seerhed a bare 

 possibility that I could reach a part of the cleft to the right of me 

 when I got to the level of the nest, but the main difficulty lay in 

 the fact that the only place where the ropes could be let down was 

 too far to one side. 



To make a long story short, I tied the end of the rope to my belt 

 and, throwing the hand line down, I put my face to the wall and 

 began the descent. We had with us one span of braided cotton 

 Tope, one-half inch thick, and a hundred and ten feet long, another 

 of the same, one hundred and twenty feet long and, in addition, 

 fifty feet of half-inch wire chain. I had put the latter at the bottom 

 as it is the easiest to climb on. It needed the 230 feet to reach 



