[2 PEREGRINE. 
A sea-gull has been known to beat a Peregrine in a fair 
f(l)ight, baffling him by its frequent turnings, in the same 
way that a white butterfly by its zigzag motions escapes a 
sparrow. 
Feeding as the Hawks do, on birds and animals, they have 
the habit, partaken of likewise by several other genera of 
birds, of casting up the indigestible part of their food, which 
in the present case consists of fur and feathers, in small round 
or oblong pellets. 
The note of the Peregrine is loud and shrill, but it is not 
often heard except in the beginning of the breeding season. 
It builds early in the spring. If one bird is shot, the 
other is sure to return with a fresh mate. A female bird 
which had been kept in confinement, has been known to pair 
with a wild male. She was shot in the act of killing a crow, 
and the fact was ascertained by a silver ring round her leg, 
on which the owner’s name was engraved. ‘The female while 
sitting, is heedless of the appearance of an enemy, but the 
male, who is on the look-out, gives timely notice of any 
approach, signifying alarm both by his shrill ery and his 
hurried flight. They defend their young with much spirit, 
and when the young are first hatched, both birds dash about 
the nest, in such a case, in manifest dismay, uttering shrieks 
of anger or distress: at times they sail off to some neigh- 
bouring eminence, from whence they desery the violation of 
their hearth, and again urged by their natural ‘storgé,’ re- 
approach their eyrie, too often to the destruction of one or 
both of them. In either case, however, the situation being 
a good one, and having been instinctively chosen accordingly, 
is tenanted anew the following spring, by the one bird with 
a fresh mate, or by a new pair. In the latter part of 
autumn, when the young birds’ education has been completed, 
so that they are able to shift and forage for themselves, they 
are expelled by the old ones from the parental domain. The 
young are sometimes fed by the one bird dropping prey from 
a great height in the air to its partner flying about the nest, 
by whom it is caught as it falls. 
The nest, which is flat in shape, is generally built on a 
projection, or in a crevice of some rocky cliff. It is composed 
of sticks, sea-weed, hair, and other such materials. Sometimes 
the bird will appropriate the old nest of some other species, 
and sometimes be satisfied with a mere hollow in the bare 
rock. It also builds in lofty trees. 
