A Massachusetts Duck Hawk Aery 



53 



gladly would those who care pay for all the damage done by Peregrines 

 each year in the New England and Middle States, in order to keep the few 

 remaining aeries tenanted! True, the birds are not yet in imminent danger 

 of extermination — perhaps they are not much rarer than they always have 

 been — but think how scarce they are relatively to any of our other Hawks, 

 and how easily their few aeries in the civilized part of our country could be 

 abolished ! Surely all true ornithologists should refrain from molesting 

 breeding pairs, whether for eggs or skins. Surely, too, all true ornitholo- 

 gists should be willing to spare them many Kingfishers and Jays and 

 Flickers and Robins; for the wide lands of New England harbor untold 

 myriads of these minor birds, while the known Falcon aeries of that same 

 region could almost, figuratively speaking, be counted on ten fingers! 



The Peregrine Falcon « is, perhaps, the most highly specialized and 

 superlatively well-developed flying organism on our planet today, combining 

 in a marvelous degree the highest powers of speed and aerial adroitness with 

 massive, warlike strength. A powerful, wild, majestic, independent bird, 

 living on the choicest of clean, carnal food, plucked fresh from the air or 

 the surface of the waters, rearing its young in the nooks of dangerous 

 mountain cliffs, claiming all the open atmosphere as its domain, and fearing 

 neither beast that walks nor bird that flies, it is the very embodiment of 

 noble rapacity and lonely freedom. It has its legitiqiate and important 

 place in the great scheme of things; and by its extinction, if that should 

 ever occur, the world would be impoverished and dulled. 



VIRGINIA RAIL ON NEST 

 Photographed hy E. G. Tabor, Meridian, N. Y., May z?. 190J 



