396 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Guillemots make it their breeding-station. It is a very bold perpendicular 

 headland, and I should consider to be only accessible to experienced 

 cragsmen with proper appliances. To stand below this cliff and watch the 

 Guillemots shoot down from their lofty ledges to the sea is a very pretty 

 sight. My eye could not discern any movement in their wings ; the feet 

 stretched out behind seemed to be the guiding power. I picked up one 

 little downy black young one at the base of the cliff, which shows that the 

 Guillemots breed there. A pair of Peregrine Falcons nest in the cliffs 

 between Dover Castle and the South Foreland, and have, I believe, reared 

 their young in safety this season. It has been a frequent source of pleasure 

 to me during the past spring to visit these falcons' breeding-place, as 

 I invariably saw one, sometimes both birds. The tiercel was wont to 

 resent my intrusion, by flying overhead and screaming querulously ; at times 

 he would "wait on" within forty or fifty yards of me. These birds have 

 shown me some good flights at pigeons this year. I was at first somewhat 

 puzzled where these pigeons came from, because all I saw flown at were 

 evidently home bred birds, and the falcons always intercepted them as they 

 were flying over the Channel. Placed on the edge of the cliff, I have 

 watched a pigeon flying with steady rapid flight over the Downs, heading 

 southward across the sea. As the pigeon passes over the cliffs the falcon 

 dashes out seaward from under the cliff, the pigeon sees its enemy and 

 rises high in air, the falcon mounts as well ; to the inexperienced eye the 

 hawk appears to be flying in an opposite direction to the pigeon, but when 

 he has gained the proper altitude down he swoops like a bolt from the sky, 

 but the pigeon eludes him by dropping with incredible rapidity to the sea. 

 Again the falcon rises, its evident intention being to drive the pigeon to the 

 shelter of the Kentish cliffs; the pigeon, seeing its course across Channel 

 barred l)y its mortal foe, seeks the shelter of the undercliff. The falcon 

 now has it all its own way, and the wings and skeletons of pigeons which 

 I have found at the base of the cliffs show what heavy toll the Peregrines 

 levy on the Belgian and French homing-pigeons returning to the Continent ; 

 for in several instances I found the name of the owner stamped upon the 

 inside of the primary wing-feathers of the pigeons, which proved to be 

 trained birds belonging to Belgian owners. — H. W. Feilden (Dover). 



Ornithological Notes from Mayo and Sligo. — Owing to the low 

 temperature of the spring months, our summer birds were late and very 

 irregular in the dates of their appearance in this locality, for with the excep- 

 tion of the Sandwich Tern and Whimbrel, none were up to their usual 

 time of arrival. The Sandwich Terns were seen on March 28th, but I did 

 not see or hear a Common Tern until May 15th. Of our land-birds the 

 Chiffchaff, as usual, was the first to make itself known — on April 22nd. 

 This bird, from the peculiarity of its song, attracted my attention at once, 

 for at first I thought that a Willow Wren and Chiffchaff were sinking in 



