228 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



far below, mounts above her and joins in the giddy 

 race. Amorously inclined he keeps stooping at 

 her playfully. But she just as a collision seems 

 inevitable avoids his attentions by describing a 

 sideways somersault, the whole exhibition being 

 accomplished at top speed. Anon they will toy 

 with and caress one another with their bills in mid- 

 air, or "tumble" sportively in a fashion which 

 somewhat recalls the aerial frolics of the Raven. 

 The control of wing exhibited by a Peregrine is 

 certainly amazing. I remember once sitting with 

 Mr. Witherington in the rocky bed of a Yorkshire 

 ' force," in one of the steep sides of which a pair 

 of Peregrines breed yearly, though at the time it 

 was a good month too early for eggs, but of course 

 the birds were frequenting the site. We were well 

 concealed, and the tiercel, returning from some 

 moorland foray and failing to see us for the moment, 

 shot up the narrow gorge between the black lines 

 of crag. His failure to detect us was very 

 fleeting. When he did, without slackening speed 

 in the least, he swerved up almost perpendicularly, 

 rising at this tangent for quite sixty feet, until in 

 fact he was quite clear of the ravine ; and then 

 he was out of sight like a flash. 



It is worth remarking that a flying Peregrine 

 practically always, and this applies to all hawks 

 and owls, except when " stooping " at their prey, 

 to the waders, and indeed to most species bigger 

 than a Mistle-Thrush, excepting the corvidae and 



