98 EALCO PEREGRINUS. 



[§ 217. Four.— West Finmark, 1 May, 1861. 



From the same nest as those in the last section. One of the eggs is very- 

 remarkable, being of a flesh-colour, verging upon pale lilac, spotted with 

 irregularly shaped rusty markings. The rest have the ordinary appear- 

 ance.] 



§ 218. nree.— West Finmark, 16 April, 1858. 



Brought to Muoniovara by Heiki, and found by Lassi at the same 

 place as the eggs before mentioned, from which both birds were 

 killed in 1857 [§ 203 and § 204]. The nest was about six ells high, 

 in a cliff. 



[§ 219. i^o?/r.— West Finmark, 1 May, 1861. "With hen 

 bird." 



From a nest which had been robbed several times before, though none of 

 the eggs taken then are now in my possession. The skin of the bird killed 

 from it accompanied these specimens. It is a truly typical Falco gxjrfalco, 

 darkly coloured, and having all the look of a veiy old bird.] 



FALCO PEREGRINUS, Gmelin. 

 PEREGRINE FALCON. 



[Besides those mentioned in the following text, Mr. WoUey's note-books 

 show that he visited many other Falcons' breeding-places in Scotland, and 

 a few in England. Several of the nests he saw were quite inaccessible even 

 to him, though possessed of so much nerve for rock-climbing. Others con- 

 tained yoimg ones, some of which he carried off and brought up. Thus he 

 had a very considerable personal acquaintance with the economy of this 

 species ; but the notes are too diffuse for insertion here. In a conununication 

 made to Mr. Hewitson in 1853 (Eggs B. B. ed. 3, pp. 24, 25), he states that, 

 on the Continent, it not unfrequently breeds in chm'ch-steeples in the thickly 

 peopled centre of a city, and also that it often takes possession of the nest of 

 a Raven in which to lay its eggs. It is indeed remarkable how many times 

 Mr. WoUey observed the Falcon and the Raven tenanting in common the same 

 rocky ledges. In one nest, containing four young ones, on an island ofi' the 

 coast of Sutherlandshire, he mentions besides that he found, among other 

 spoil, the wing of a Kestrel, — a circumstance apparently contradicting the 

 common Scottish proverb that "Hawks dinna pick at Hawks' eyn." 



The persistency with which Falcons and other birds of prey continue, 

 during a great number of years, to use one spot for breeding is tolerably well 

 known ; but one singular instance I cannot refrain from mentioning here. In 

 1736, when the French Astronomical Expedition for ascertaining the figure 



