72 PEEEGEINE. 



A sea-gull has been known to beat a Peregrine in a fair 

 f(l)ight, baffling him by its frequent turnings, in the same 

 way that a white butterfly by its zigzag motion escapes a 

 sparrow. 



Feeding as the Hawks do, on birds and animals, they have 

 the habit, partaken of likewise by several other genera of 

 birds, of casting up the indigestible part of their food, which 

 in the present case consists of fur and feathers, in small round 

 or oblong pellets. 



The note of the Peregrine is loud and shrill, but it is not 

 often heard except in the beginning of the breeding season. 



It builds early in the spring. If one bird is shot, the 

 other is sure to return with a fresh mate. A female bird 

 which had been kept in confinement, has been known to pair 

 with a wild male. She was shot in the act of killing a crow, 

 and the fact was ascertained by a silver ring round her leg, 

 on which the owner's name was engraved. The female while 

 sitting, is heedless of the appearance of an enemy, but the 

 male, who is on the look-out, gives timely notice of any 

 approach, signifying alarm both by his shrill cry and his 

 hurried flight. They defend their young with much spirit, 

 and when the young are first hatched, both birds clash about 

 the nest, in such a case, in manifest dismay, uttering shrieks 

 of anger or distress: at times they sail off to some neigh- 

 bouring eminence, from whence they descry the violation of 

 their hearth, and again urged by their natural 'storge,' re- 

 approach their eyrie, too often to the destruction of one or 

 both of them. In either case, however, the situation being 

 a good one, and having been instinctively chosen accordingly, 

 is tenanted anew the following spring, by the one bird with 

 a fresh mate, or by a new pair. In the latter part of 

 autumn, when the young birds' education has been completed, 

 so that they are able to shift and forage for themselves, they 

 are expelled by the old ones from the parental domain. The 

 young are sometimes fed by the one bird dropping prey from 

 a great height in the air to its partner flying about the nest, 

 by whom it is caught as it falls. 



The nest, which is flat in shape, is generally built on a 

 projection, or in a crevice of some rocky cliff. It is composed 

 of sticks, sea-weed, hair, and other such materials. Sometimes 

 the bird will appropriate the old nest of some other species, 

 and sometimes be satisfied with a mere hollow in the bare 

 rock. It also builds in lofty trees. 



