14 The Bird Life of an Outer Island. [Sess. 



it in an arc of dizzy precipice. My brother was ahead with 

 a camera, I was following with another, C. had lingered among 

 a multitude of Puffins to put a regal supper — was the Puffin 

 not the Peregrine's choice ? — beyond the region of uncertainty. 

 Almost simultaneously with a shout from my brother I became 

 aware of Peregrines screaming in the air beyond the headland. 

 I rushed back and flung the tidings to C, and straightway was 

 glad to see that two Puffins already dangled at his waist. C. 

 caught me up as I ran forward, and we joined my brother to- 

 gether on the brink of the cliff. 



Our first interest was aloft, where two Peregrines whirled, 

 sometimes overhead, but mainly out to sea in a perfect storm 

 of fury. In a few moments we could distinguish Tiercel and 

 Falcon, and the Falcon was probably — remember we were 

 judging by behaviour — the more furious of the two. Back- 

 wards and forwards she swept across our line of vision ; twice 

 or three times she stooped towards the cliff with a rapidity 

 past calculation, and her screaming never paused for a mo- 

 ment, although now and again it rose in such an ebullition of 

 anger — impotent anger — that it " broke " in her throat. To 

 be quite fair to the Tiercel — and when I recollect the conduct 

 of some male Peregrines it would be grossly unfair to omit it 

 — he was (at first at least) almost as vehement as his mate, 

 but he preferred wide circles — sometimes he was entirely lost 

 to view — and he relaxed the vigour of his solicitude early. 

 Between them at least there was agitation enough to proclaim 

 an eyrie, and when my brother pointed to the litter of bones 

 and feathers — a perfect holocaust of Puffins — at our feet, the 

 fact of an eyrie existing somewhere on the two hundred feet 

 of shattered, crumbling, fissured rock, which dropped down 

 from beneath us to the heaving green of the ocean, seemed 

 established beyond conjecture. There was confirmation too in 

 the attitude of the sea-fowl which we could see scattered along 

 the face of the cliff. There was no unusual excitement among 

 them, no signs of terror : they were going about the ordinary 

 business of their lives heedless of the frenzied agitation above 

 them ; and this apathy of the surrounding sea-birds is always 

 a characteristic feature of a maritime eyrie. It is in such 

 striking contrast to the consternation which reigns at colonies 

 far removed from an eyrie, when the Peregrine appears on the 



