THE PEREGRINE FALCON. 147 



water plants, small mollusks, and tadpoles. When fully 

 grown they delight in beech-nuts, acorns, and such berries 

 as may be found in their locality. 



These elegant birds, so delicious for the table, and 

 so easily domesticated, spend their winters on the 

 fresh waters of the more southern portion of the 

 Union. Indeed, they are always strictly fresh-water ducks, 

 and may sometimes be found in large flocks during fall and 

 winter. Though extending somewhat farther north, this 

 Duck is particularly a bird of the United States, breeding 

 very commonly in all suitable places, and hence is often 

 called the Summer Duck. 



THE PEREGRINE FALCON. 



Scarcely have the elegant pair of Wood Ducks disap- 

 peared, when there passed overhead one of the most dis- 

 tinguished birds in the world the Peregrine Falcon, or 

 Duck Hawk (Falco communis). For a moment he seemed 

 to be "stooping" upon some object of prey, then, as if 

 disappointed, rose for a short distance in a short spiral curve 

 and made off. As he swept with the speed of an arrow past 

 me, I could hear the vibrating hum of his pinions; and 

 when he rose, he pursued his abruptly-curved pathway with 

 a swift, nervous sailing, wholly unlike the slow and majestic 

 sweep of the Buzzards. Though not numerous anywhere, 

 this bird has very nearly or quite the wide world as its 

 range. It is well known all along the Atlantic Coast, and is 

 more or less common along the great rivers of the interior, 

 in the mountainous regions of which it breeds, the nest, 

 like that of the Golden Eagle, being placed on ledges of 

 projecting rock on some lofty precipice. Professor S. S. 

 Haldeman was the first to note its breeding in the United 

 States, discovering the site of its nest in the mountain- 



