50 FALCONID^. 



and the Isle of May in the Forth, as places in which these 

 nohle birds rear their young, returning to the same spot, 

 for the same purpose, many years in succession. This 

 species breeds annually in the Outer Hebrides and the 

 Shetland Isles, and is found also in Denmark, Sweden, 

 Norway, and Lapland. Pennant, in his Arctic Zoology, 

 includes the Peregrine as an inhabitant of the Uralian and 

 Siberian Mountains ; and it is found also in Greenland. 

 In North America and the United States this species is 

 well known, and its habits are described by the various 

 naturalists who have written on the birds of that country. 

 Captain King, when surveying the Straits of Magellan, 

 found two birds which he considered to be young Pere- 

 grines. It is found at Corfu, Sicily, and Malta ; Dr. An- 

 drew Smith has recorded it as inhabiting the vicinity of 

 the Cape of Good Hope ; Mr. Blyth has found it in India ; 

 and Mr. Vigors and Dr. Horsfield have included this spe- 

 cies in their Catalogue of the Birds of New Holland, pub- 

 lished in the Transactions of the Linnean Society. 



The whole length of an adult Peregrine Falcon is from 

 fifteen to eighteen inches, depending on the sex and age of 

 the bird. The beak is blue, approaching to black, at the 

 point ; the cere and eyelids yellow, the irides dark hazel 

 brown ; the top of the head, back of the neck, and a spot 

 below the eye, nearly black ; the back and upper surface 

 bluish slate or ash colour, becoming lighter in colour at 

 every succeeding moult, the males usually the most so : 

 the feathers of the back, wing-coverts, and tail, barred with 

 a darker tint ; the primary wing-feathers brownish black, 

 the inner webs barred and spotted with rufous white ; the 

 front of the neck white, with dark longitudinal lines ; the 

 breast rufous white, with dark brown transverse bars ; the 

 flanks, under tail-coverts, and the under surface of the 

 tail-feathers, barred transversely with dark brown and grey- 



