THE PEREGRINE FALCON. 35 



frequently, when out shooting, obtained a single grouse, which 

 had been killed by wild peregrine falcons, but except in the above 

 instance, never more than one. 



Another friend, walking on Devis mountain, near Belfast, on 

 the 1st of September, 1832, saw one of these birds pursue a 

 couple of grouse for some distance without success, and subse- 

 quently kill a snipe high in the air, after a good chase. A sports- 

 man states, that woodcocks shot by Mm in the south of Ireland, 

 have more than once been pounced upon and carried off by wild 

 peregrine falcons before they reached the ground. 



On the two following occasions I had opportunities of remark- 

 ing tins falcon in haunts similar to those, which, according to 

 Wilson, it frequents in America* On the 8th of May, 1832, as 

 the banks of Belfast Bay,f at about a mile from the town on the 

 northern shore, were becoming bare from the ebbing of the tide, 

 they were literary covered with dunlins {Tringa variabilis) and 

 some ringed plovers (Ckaradrius hiaticula) intermixed, all busily 

 feeding on the rejectamenta of the waves. This flock, consisting 

 of many hundreds, to my surprise, suddenly, and without any 

 apparent cause of alarm, took wing, but immediately afterwards, 

 I observed a peregrine falcon bearing down upon them. As they 

 flew out to sea, he followed them only a short way above the 

 water, and returning without any prey, after a few bold and 

 graceful sweeps, alighted on the beach they had left, when, with 



* Mr. Rd. Langtry having heard that the gyr falcon hred on the coast of Labra- 

 dor, gave a commission in 1836 to a person proceeding thither, to obtain for him 

 young birds from the nest. Four falcons were accordingly in that year procured 

 from an eyrie in the cliffs impending the sea, near the Moravian Settlement, Labra- 

 dor, but two only reached my friend alive, the others having died on the passage. 

 Instead, however, of the Gyr, they proved to be the Peregrine falcon. I saw them 

 frequently during the year after they were received, and considered them the same 

 as our native species. They were large birds, and of a darker shade of colour than 

 usual. The Prince of Canino considers the American bird distinct from the European, 

 which he does not admit into the fauna of North America. In his " Comparative 

 List of the Birds of Europe and North America," p. 4, the bird described as F. 

 Feregrinus by Wilson, is named Falco anatum. 



f Several species of the Raptores being mentioned as occurring in Belfast Bay, it 

 should be stated that the tide recedes here to a very great distance, leaving a vast 

 extent of banks uncovered, on many parts of which the grass-wrack {Zostera marina) 

 grows so profusely as to impart a greenish tinge ; the whole at low water presenting 

 somewhat the appearance of a marsh. 



D 2 



