98 A BIRD’ COLLECTOR'S MEDEBY- 
set quite close to her. The gin went over the cliffs and the eggs into Morton’s 
pocket, and one can hardly doubt that but for this fact the bird would have 
eventually been caught on the nest, and, together with its eggs, have become 
the spoil of the unknown setter of the gin. As it was, the nest was sure to 
be deserted, and I went a few days later to seeif I could get a glimpse of 
the birds. I had never seen any Peregrines alive, and I shall not readily 
forget this, my first view of them. 
As we rounded a corner near the lighthouse the Tiercel, who was acting 
as sentinel, flew off the cliff about half-way up, and with shrill screams and 
rapid beats circled round us within easy range of a gun. Some seconds later 
the Falcon followed him, and for quite five minutes we enjoyed the splendid 
spectacle of a pair of Peregrines wheeling round our heads, mingling with, but 
apparently quite unnoticed by, a crowd of equally distracted Gulls, which were 
breeding hard by on the lower portion of the cliff. The Peregrines seemed this 
time to have selected a nesting-site quite unapproachable from either top or 
bottom. What struck me most about them was their tremendous wing 
power. They were not as large as I had expected, not looking any larger 
than Kestrels, but the breadth of wing across the secondaries was sufficient 
to distinguish them at a glance, even when high up and with their colours 
undiscernible. Their flight, too, was different; strong rapid beats propelled 
them through the air in a manner very unlike the indolent and erratic glide 
of the Kestrel. Their tails also appeared shorter, and, generally speaking, 
they were less elegant but sturdier birds—there was a sort of “rugger” build 
about them; they were of the type that goes through anything. 
I went again, shortly afterwards, to have another inspection, but the 
whole place was bathed in sea fog, and as the coastguard was firing off a gun 
every five minutes for the guidance of passing ships, all the birds had been 
disturbed. We did see a Peregrine, nevertheless; high over our heads it 
passed out of the mist on one side, and was buried again in a few seconds on 
the other, but there was no mistaking the beat of its pinions, even in that 
deceptive light. 
The final scene in the history of this attempt on the part of the Peregrines 
to bring off a brood at Beachy must, if I have been rightly informed, have 
been a dramatic one. Some unknown persecutor—perhaps the owner, or 
rather ex-owner, of the gin—set out in the early morning equipped with a 
gun, a Pigeon, and a string. Arrived opposite the eyrie, he loaded the gun, 
tied the string to the Pigeon’s leg, and flew it temptingly before the face of 
the cliff. The answer to this challenge was instantaneous. The Peregrine 
stooped at it like a thunderbolt. The gunner lost his head, and hurriedly fired 
