PEREGEINE FALCONS 245 



clutches late in March, though April 7th is the 

 best average date. This date, too, is occasionally 

 safe for Welsh and Irish birds, though far more 

 usually from April 12th to 20th constitutes the 

 normal laying-period of those individuals, as well 

 as and of course their brethren in more northerly 

 latitudes : Lakeland, Scotland and its outlying isles. 

 Usually individual hens deposit their first egg on 

 almost precisely the same date year by year. 



Hole-breeders are, naturally, closer sitters than 

 those whose eyries are on ledges. The former, 

 indeed and especially at certain stages of incuba- 

 tion are sometimes induced to quit with difficulty, 

 even by means of repeated shouting, vigorous 

 hand-clapping, or several shots from a revolver. 

 I have, too, seen continued showers of rubble 

 dropped past a hole before the brooding Falcon 

 inside could be persuaded to vacate her post. 

 Once but it is only fair to add that it was a 

 peculiarly atrocious day after having utterly 

 failed to dislodge a sitting Peregrine from her eyrie 

 in a deep embrasure in a certain precipice, I roped 

 down, only to have the great bird flutter out 

 under my very feet. Such instances are, however, 

 very exceptional, and generally only occur when 

 the sentinel bird is off duty. On several occa- 

 sions on the south coast I have watched a 

 Peregrine, flushed from eggs, revisit its eyrie with 

 the guide rope swaying right over and in front of 

 the latter. 



