PEREGRINE FALCONS 221 



is, it occasionally turns wanton as well. I have 

 watched first one then another of a ' ' chackling ' 

 troop of Daws a regular right and left with two 

 short, deft stoops drop lifeless to its relentless 

 lust of killing, while the tyrant vanished over the 

 brow of an adjacent ridge without so much as a 

 glance at its hideous handiwork. Often and often, 

 too, will a Peregrine especially the female just 

 foot ' ' a big bird which has intruded too closely 

 on the sacred confines of its eyrie a sort of 

 caution to trespassers in fact. 



Aptly has the Peregrine been christened 

 ' hunting " hawk, since scarce a winged creature 

 comes amiss to it in the way of food, few are the 

 fowls that can foil its fearsome onslaught. On 

 moor and deer-forest its fare mainly consists of 

 Grouse, Ptarmigan (if they occur, this species 

 being wholly confined to the highlands of Scot- 

 land), Black-game, ducks, plovers, and their kind ; 

 on ocean cliffs, according as they occur, quantities 

 of Rock- and Stock-Doves, together with many 

 sorts of sea-fowl (the larger gulls, however, usually 

 enjoying immunity), Puffins in particular afford- 

 ing it many a dainty repast. I have seen an eyrie 

 on the rough, turfy top of a stack-rock right in 

 the centre of a colony of Puffins, to which a three 

 year old child could have toddled unaided, which 

 was ringed round with a pile of those birds' 

 remains to the height of fully a foot. Innumerable 

 tame pigeons, too, from the outlying cotes, not to 



