PEREGRINES IN LOVE 133 



the headland to the inland villages, watching 

 for the chance of taking a tame dove from 

 a cot; onwards to the lonely wastes of the 

 sandhills, crowned with spike-grass, where 

 the peewits wail throughout the springtime. 

 They dash up the wide estuary; the ring- 

 plover crouch low among the stones and 

 seaweed as they pass; they even visit Barn- 

 staple itself for the blue-gray pigeons that 

 wheel above its old shipyards. In the 

 skyey loftiness one moment arc the hawks, 

 watching and soaring, the male usually 

 the higher; one will close pinions and dive 

 like a dark arrowhead through the air, 

 flattening as a bird is reached; there is a 

 burst of feathers, a triumphant chattering, 

 and the limp victim is borne to the solitudes 

 of the dunes. A week later upon the sand 

 a bleached skeleton will lie, surrounded by 

 a scattered ring of feathers, in company 

 with old bones of rabbits and bead-like 

 shells that tell of ended generations. 

 The pair rarely separates. Maybe the 



