232 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



intimate with some pairs which are well content 

 with quite tame heights : I have, for example, 

 seen an eyrie in a 50 ft. cliff. As a matter of fact, 

 from its being sheer, a rope was required for this 

 "nest," and indeed even in broken up cliffs the 

 bird has a happy knack of selecting a site which 

 to reach necessitates tackle. All the same, to a 

 good many eyries, especially those on mountain- 

 cliffs, I have climbed without so much as a 

 yard of rope. 



One of three positions usually in the upper 

 half or upper third of the precipice, doubtless 

 because of the commanding position so established 

 is pitched upon, (1) a broadish ledge, buttress 

 or shelf, (2) a big hole, wide slit or embrasure, and 

 (3) a basin-like formation lying between some out- 

 standing pillar or pinnacle and the main cliff. Of 

 over seventy eyries examined between 1904 and 

 1912 inclusive, forty -two have been in the second - 

 named position, but only three in the last. Our 

 Sussex Peregrines, in fact, like -nothing so well 

 for a breeding-site as one of those large, soil- 

 bottomed holes or small caverns measuring 

 roughly from two to three cubic feet, which, dotted 

 about here and there in, and generally in the upper 

 third of, the cliff, form a special feature of certain 

 portions of our chalk bastions. It is interesting 

 to note that all these holes have a floor of soil 

 (sometimes of the normal brown, sometimes, and 

 no doubt from an admixture of chalk, of the colour 



