1 6 The Bird Life of an Outer Island. [Sess, 



ninety feet from the real top of the cliff, and accessible (as we 

 proved it to be) without a rope or any hazardous rockwork. 

 Its very accessibility was typical. The Peregrine, like all our 

 cliff-nesting Eaptors from the Golden Eagle downward, and 

 unfortunately for himself, has no eye for the unclimbable in 

 a cliff. Any cliff site may of course be troublesome or even 

 dangerous to reach, and doubtless the Falcons will cling to 

 the position where they enjoy the greatest immunity from 

 marauders ; but the Peregrine possesses none of that acute 

 perception and appreciation of cliff configuration in its relation 

 to human powers which is so marked a character of the 

 Eaven, and which is perhaps never so conspicuous as when a 

 Peregrine's eyrie and a Eaven's nest are in close proximity on 

 the same range of the rock — the former offering maybe no 

 hard nut for the cragsmen to crack, the latter taxing and not 

 unlikely baffling all his resources, — its position, one would 

 think, deliberately chosen for its inaccessibility, and its in- 

 accessibility alone. Quite other considerations weigh with 

 the Peregrine, and this eyrie showed them. There is her (I 

 shall presume that it is the Falcon — the female bird — who 

 controls the nesting business) love of a fine outlook. Here 

 the Falcon's cowp d'ceil was only limited by the power of her 

 eye. Before her was spread the illimitable breadth of the 

 Atlantic; to the south rose and receded the great girdle of 

 the island's bulwarks; in the north lay other wild, desolate 

 fragments of the Long Island, — in all the prospect not a sign 

 of the hand of man, not a trace of his passage. Surely an 

 outlook in a thousand ! There is also her liking for a bare 

 ledge, and — what has more reason in it — for a broad ledge. 

 Broadness — space — is necessary where the scions of the house 

 are as restless and spirited as the youthful Peregrine ; but the 

 bare hard surface which the brooding Peregrine demands par- 

 takes more of a whim. She will have nothing to do with 

 soft materials, like a Buzzard — she is a veritable Spartan in 

 this respect : she asks for nothing more than mother earth, 

 and any grass or sea-thrift which may grow on the chosen 

 site is scraped and torn up by her talons ere the eggs are laid. 

 Here even the feathers and other remains of the prey were 

 scattered beyond a clear space, where reposed the youngsters, 

 and this was the inner and flattened edge of a grassy bank 



