PEREGRINE FALCON. 39 



the practice of these sober and industrious men to stay 

 with their employers during the season for hawking, and 

 to pass the remainder of the year with their families at 

 home. John Pells, now in the service of my friend John 

 Dawson Downes, Esq. of Old Gunton Hill, Suffolk, and 

 who also manages the Heron Hawks kept by subscription 

 in Norfolk, is (I believe) the only efficient falconer by 

 profession now remaining ; all the others whom I remem- 

 ber are either dead or worn out, and there has been no 

 inducement to younger men to follow the employment of 

 their forefathers. 11 



The Peregrine Falcon builds on high rocks on various 

 parts of the coast, but is more numerous in Scotland than 

 in England. The eggs are from two to four in number, 

 about two inches long by one inch and eight lines in 

 breadth, mottled all over with pale reddish brown. The 

 old Falcons obtain a plentiful supply of food for them- 

 selves and their brood by preying upon the numerous 

 aquatic birds that rear their young in the same localities. 

 Mr. Selby, in one of his papers on the Birds observed in 

 the vicinity of St. Abb's Head, says, " that the eyrie 

 of the Peregrine Falcon had long been established there. 

 A pair of old ones and a pair of young birds were seen at 

 this visit. It was from this locality that the late Mr. 

 Baird of Newbyth usually obtained his cast of Hawks, for 

 each of which he gave the person who undertook the 

 perilous task of scaling the precipice one guinea. The 

 castings of these birds, Mr. Selby noticed, were scattered 

 in great profusion upon the tops of the cliffs : those ex- 

 amined were almost wholly composed of the bones and 

 feathers of gulls and other aquatic fowl; others were 

 mixed with the feathers of partridges, and the bones of 

 rabbits and young hares. 11 



