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.” 
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.” 
