PEREGRINE FALCONS 237 



will, like some broody hen, long before an egg 

 is laid. 



When deposited in a hole the eggs generally 

 lie rather less than half way in, and since most of 

 the chambers used seldom penetrate the cliff more 

 than a yard, and usually not so much, the eggs 

 can be examined with ease. Only, of course, you 

 must get down to them first. Mr. Smythe, 

 however, tells me of one eyrie in which the eggs 

 were right at the back of a ' ' den ' ' fully six feet 

 in length, where they were utterly beyond reach 

 except through the medium of a long, crooked 

 stick. 



Several recognized feeding-posts are situate 

 around the eyrie, as w^ell as further along the cliff 

 and on the ground above it, occasionally to the 

 extent of half a mile, sometimes indeed the whole 

 place is a veritable golgotha and " goose-green "; 

 the eyrie itself, if large enough, and particularly 

 when there are young in it, often constitutes one 

 such "messing" table. 



Sometimes after a thorough spring-clean the 

 same eyrie is used for several years in succession; 

 yet, usually speaking perhaps (and this holds 

 good quite irrespective of whether the bird was 

 plundered the previous season), each pair possesses 

 from two to six alternative sites, which are 

 patronized in turn. These may- be close together, 

 or, on the contrary, some little way apart; 

 sometimes, indeed, two sites are distant a mile or 



