HAUNTS OF THE PEREGRINE. 17 



courage, and docility of this noble bird our ances- 

 tors were indebted for so large a share of their 

 amusement when his value was so great that 

 in the reign of James the First a sum equivalent 

 to a thousand pounds of our money was once 

 given for a well-trained ' cast/ or pair yet in 

 these degenerate days he attracts but little notice, 

 except where his occasional forays among grouse 

 and partridges, or his wholesale depredations in 

 the neighbourhood of decoys or on preserved 

 lakes or ponds which are stocked with water- 

 fowl, draws down the vengeance of the keeper 

 and consigns him to the deadly trap. His eyrie 

 too is occasionally plundered of its contents by 

 some adventurous native, to whom the sale of 

 the eggs or young may prove a fortunate specu- 

 lation and strange to say, the latter are less 

 likely to find a purchaser now-a-days than the 

 former but although from the danger and diffi- 

 culty of robbing the nest of the peregrine, and 

 his now comparative worthlessness in a sporting 

 point of view, together with his great wariness, 

 his wonderful powers of wing, and the altitude 

 at which he flies when searching for prey or per- 

 forming his migrations, it might be expected that 

 the species would have multiplied of late years, 

 yet such does not appear to be the case. In- 

 creased attention on the part of ornithological 



