PEREGRINES IN LOVE 135 

 may see the neck and wings, slate-ash in 

 colour, the dark crown* and nape, the hooked 

 beak and the barred tail. He may shout 

 and wave his arms in excitement, the ravens 

 croak, the gulls scream, the lone buzzard 

 wail as he circles, but the love-chase con- 

 tinues. On the falcons rush, above the 

 crested waves and the marbled troughs of 

 the ocean, past the crannies and the ledges of 

 the precipice,' among the summer cloudlets, 

 over the hills of heather and the slopes of 

 golden gorse, by the mounded sand-dunes 

 and the glistening mud-flats; all the heavenly 

 freeness is theirs to roam. Bold they are, 

 and observe no law, but they hunt openly 

 and in defiance often cursed by the sporting 

 farmer; and yet all of us are proud of our 

 " pregun forlkns." 



L.S. 



