230 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



eyrie, even where the bird is common, seldom being 

 less than two miles apart, though I have on several 

 occasions know r n of two tenanted sites less than 

 a quarter of a mile distant, especially on the south 

 coast) almost exclusively to the sea-cliffs and 

 mountain-ranges they love so well, with the wide 

 unbroken stretches of barren down and desolate 

 moorland as their background. Here nature's 

 workings and hushed, inarticulate voices have 

 matters to themselves ; here, save for the e\or- 

 attentive shepherd and cattle-herd, the vagrant 

 nature-lover or chance wanderer, the soil is well- 

 nigh virgin. In fact, most Peregrine's haunts 

 are amongst the wildest and most savagely-romantic 

 scenery to be found in our Islands. You may 

 follow the bird to the frowning grandeur of the 

 Highland glen, from there to the notorious beauty 

 of the " Lakes," again to the loveliness of the 

 Welsh ' cwm ' or Irish mountain, from there 

 again along the majestic contours of the chains and 

 bluffs of cliff-land, which lend so- much additional 

 charm to so many of our sea-boards. The 

 Peregrine chiefly loves bare, treeless country such 

 as is only found to perfection on the misty rugged- 

 ness of the moors and among the more gentle 

 undulations of the downs. There truly is it 

 ' monarch of all it surveys," if we except that 

 destroyer of all wild -life man. 



Much as it loves solitude and solitary places, the 

 Peregrine evinces little real dread of man, and fre- 



