90 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
left the rope tied and hanging down the cliff, and after two hours 
of stumbling among rocks and hollows reached our car at 10 p.m. 
On the following morning, May 1st, 1883 (a clear sunny day), 
after in vain trying to induce our assistants of the previous day 
to accompany us, I at last got two young men who had accom- 
panied me to Crotty’s Lake the previous year, and whom I found 
helpful intelligent fellows used to the mountains. I sent them on 
with O’D. to the rope on the top of the cliffs while I went to the 
foot. Our shouting from above and below did not move the 
Peregrine, but the moment that I swung the rope she took flight 
from a horizontal fissure above the smaller oven-shaped cavity 
where she bred in 1882. (I found on scaling the cliff that this 
latter recess contains an old Raven’s nest, composed, like those 
visited the previous day, of crooked sticks). The attempt to pull 
me up from the foot of the cliffs proving fruitless as before, 
I again climbed round to the men above. Both the Peregrines 
were now careering about the amphitheatre of cliffs, uttering 
their rapidly-repeated cry; that of the male was hoarse, while 
the voice of the female was clear and shrill; she was a truly 
noble bird, one of the finest I ever saw. I now descended the 
cliff, coming right down on the eyrie this time, the female 
Peregrine as I approached her eggs sweeping angrily by with 
louder cries. 
The cliffs of Old Red Sandstone conglomerate are more per- 
pendicular and wall-like here than I have ever seen, but about 
one-third or one-fourth of the way from the bottom is the 
horizontal fissure, affording a good grassy shelf that one can 
stand on comfortably. On the inner side of this shelf, beneath 
the overhanging rock, a hollow was scraped among the grass; 
it contained three very round eggs; among them were small bits 
of stone and of rhizomes of bracken, but, as usual, no nest what- 
ever. I now reached the ground with my hard-won prizes; they 
were found to be in an early stage of incubation. Were it not for 
the elevation of this locality, one might expect the young 
Peregrines to be hatched by the first week in May; but Crotty’s 
Lake is nearly 1400 feet, and the top of the cliff more than 
2000 feet above the sea-level. These three eggs measured 
respectively 2°11 by 1°71 in., 2°05 by 1°63 in., and 1°98 by 1°61 in. 
Onc is unusually colourless, another has patches of white showing 
out through the red, and the third is richly coloured and streaked 
As Lae ——S 
ee oe ee 
