12 Miss Peregrine shortens her drumstick by— 
between them after this, and the young began to whimper, apparently 
from cold. Finally, at 7.30 p.m., I was disappointed when the 
Tiercel came and brooded them for the night. 
Next morning I heard the Tiercel call soon after 3 a.m., and 
raising my head from the pillows, saw him looking skywards as he 
sat brooding the young. About 4 a.m. he was calling again. 
This time he flew off, but returned in a few minutes to brood. The 
same occurred at 5 a.m., and hearing the young whimpering 
after his return, I looked out and found he was feeding them off 
a thrush. The second meal started at 5.50 a.m. and lasted till 
6.5; apparently the quarry was a blackbird. In the course of this 
meal they swallowed practically all the feathers except the flight 
and tail feathers. He gave one female the rump, and when he 
found her in difficulties, he took it back and pulled the tail-feathers 
out for her. When he got to the intestines he snipped off pieces 
three or four inches long, and occasionally there was a tug-of-war 
if the piece was not swallowed in time to prevent another youngster 
seizing the free end. When, towards the end of the meal, the young 
became inattentive, he did a good deal of yapping, as usual. 
During this meal, at 6 a.m., one of the young females had a leg 
given to her, and during the rest of the meal she made convulsive 
gulps in her efforts to swallow it, but the claws and about an inch 
of the leg remained outside. The Tiercel again swallowed the 
remnants, including the other leg, and then covered the young, 
without paying any attention to the young female with the pro- 
truding claw. He dozed at intervals, and in closing his eyes I 
noticed that the lower lid, yellow in colour, rose slowly and covered 
the eye. He never dozed for more than a few seconds at a time, 
even when not disturbed by the youngsters moving under him. 
This often happened, the chief offender being the female with the 
claws. She on several occasions wriggled her head out from under 
his breast. The last time I saw her do this was at 6.35 a.m., when 
the claws were still protruding. At 7 a.m. I tested the light at 
the back door, and, finding it sufficiently good, took a series of him 
with the studio shutter. Whenever he dozed for more than fifteen 
seconds, his head began to droop on his chest. Several times he 
sat there with his seaward-eye open and his landward-eye closed ; 
