8 THE PEREGRINE FALCON. 



April or about the beginning of May. It appears often to 

 change the site of its breeding quarters from one favourite 

 part of the sea-board to another, at irregular intervals, but 

 sometimes continues to occupy the same eyrie for a number 

 of years in succession. The eggs, which are generally 

 deposited on the bare earth, ^ are three or sometimes four 

 in number, and are of a dull yellow, thickly mottled 

 and blotched with dark reddish brown. The young, which 

 are at first covered with white down, are usually ready to 

 be taken for taming about the second week in June, and 

 towards the end of that month they may be seen sitting 

 about the rocks in the neighbourhood of the nest. After 

 leaving their eyrie, and until their first moult, the general 

 colour of the upper parts of the young is brownish ash, the 

 edge of each feather being rufous. The under parts are 

 dirty white, with dark longitudinal streaks. In the adult 

 birds of both sexes the upper parts are bluish slate colour 

 barred with a darker tint — hence the local name of " Blue 

 Hawk " — and the under parts rufous white, with dark 

 brown transverse bars. The irides are dark hazel brown. 

 The female, which is much larger and more powerful than 

 the male, was, in the palmy days of hawking, known as 

 " The Falcon," whilst the male was called the " Tercel- 

 gentle." 2 



The flight of the Peregrine is very rapid, and resembles 



1 Mr. Peter Cowe has informed me that when he climbed to the Falcon's eyrie 

 at Fast Castle in 1860, he saw very little appe.irance of a nest in the crevice of the 

 cliff where the young birds were ; and Mr. John Wilson, Chapelhill, says that 

 when he was engaged with Mr. W. Cowe taking the young Falcons in their eyrie 

 there in June 1866, he observed scarcely any nesting materials arouml them. In 

 the case of a Peregrine's eyrie on an inland precipice in Inverness-shire wliich I 

 personally exanuned in May 1866, the eggs were merely deposited in a little hollow 

 scraped in the earthen lloor of the crevice in tlic rock. 



2 It is said to have derived the name of " Tercel " from being about one-third 

 smaller than "The Falcon," but sonic authorities state that of tlie three young 

 birds usually found in the nest of tlie Peregrine, two are females, and the third a 

 male, wliich, on this account, is called the "Tercel." See Ilarting's Ornithology 

 of Shakespeare, p. 52. 



