PEREGRINE FALCONS 217 



speedily usurped time after time by some wandering 



pair after each preceding owner has gone the way 



of most predatory species. To show that the 



Peregrine is really no uncommon bird, there is no 



need to travel further than the sea-cliffs of Sussex, 



where some years I have known of as many as a 



dozen eyries, while we never boast less than seven 



or eight annually. No better evidence of the bird's 



plenty could be adduced, or, if adduced, needed. 



Indeed, when one considers that the combined 



frontage of cliff there attains to little more than 



sixteen miles in all, the figures are little less than 



startling, since it means that, in those years that 



there happen to be a dozen eyries, there is on 



an average a breeding pair to every mile and a third 



of cliff. No district I know r and I have sojourned 



in areas of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, where the 



bird is justly considered common or have heard 



of, can show so many Peregrines to so small a 



mileage of cliff. This is all the more remarkable 



when we remember that Sussex is in the main a 



'preserved" county; bear in mind, too, how 



bitter is the sportsman against a hawk which, 'tis 



true (though I say it regretfully), plays fast and 



loose with his prospects of a heavy bag. In Sussex 



the Peregrine wins the day, because, in spring and 



summer at any rate, it confines its raids to the 



stretches of cliff with the downland reaches at 



their back, where keepers are fortunately few and 



far between, and because, quite apart from this 



