THE PEREGRINE FALCON. SB 



" You will see further particulars on this subject in the paper pub- 

 lished in the Annals of Nat. History, No. 10, Dec, 1838." 



THE PEEEGBINE FALCON. 



Falco peregrinus, Briss. 



Inhabits suitable localities throughout the island, breed- 

 ing in marine and inland cliffs. 



Eyries and Distribution. — In the cliffs of the four maritime 

 counties of Ulster, it has many eyries, and in Antrim, where the 

 basaltic precipices are peculiarly favourable for this purpose, nine 

 at least may be enumerated. Three of these, — Glenariff, Salagh 

 Braes, and the Cave-hill,'* — are inland. A nest was pointed out 

 in 1834 to Dr. J. D. Marshall, in a range of basaltic cliffs on the 

 north side of the island of Rathlin, to which a man descended, 

 and brought up two young birds. In connection with two of the 

 grandest features of this coast, Fairhead and Dunluce Castle, the 

 peregrine falcon has especially attracted my attention. The eyrie 

 at the latter, however, is not on the same headland with the Castle, 

 but at a more lofty one on its eastern-side. 



A range of precipitous basaltic cliff, called the Gobbins, rising 

 from the sea outside the northern entrance to Belfast bay, has 

 been regularly frequented to the present time (1847) by a 

 pair, and in one year, there were two nests within an extent 

 of rock considerably less than a mile, which is the only in- 

 stance known to me of so close an approximation of their 

 eyries. Even at "the Horn" in Donegal, where the extent of 

 lofty precipices is very great and continuous, we met with but a 

 pair of these birds during a week spent there, when we endeavour - 



* A pair bred in M'Art's Fort on this hill, in 1822, and the young were taken by 

 a person lowered over the precipice with a rope around his body. This locality, about 

 three miles from Belfast, is now too much frequented to be occupied by the peregrine 

 falcon. In the spring of 1832, a pair remained there for some time, but did not 

 venture to build. M'Skimmin, in his History of Carrickfergus, mentions its building 

 in another inland locality, at the rocks of the Knockagh Hill, near that town. 



VOL. I. D 



