20 Looking at the sun makes you sneeze. 
think all this rather far-fetched I recommend them to watch such 
wild birds at close quarters. I do not mean the broken-spirited 
wretches one sees in zoos. Then he raised his wings and hopped 
on to C, and preened himself for twenty-two minutes in strong 
sunshine. I evidently missed seeing a lot while I was getting the 
Shelf straight, but, fortunately, King on a subsequent occasion 
filled in the gaps. The Tiercel shook and fluffed himself out and 
buried his head among his breast feathers, occasionally cocking his 
head round, and with a child-like expression, partly due to his half- 
closed eyes, he called to the Falcon for food. Then he sneezed two 
or three times, scratched his nose with one claw, and lifted each 
talon in turn with outspread toes, peeling bits off them with his 
beak. Then he brought both feet down and raised his wings high 
above his head, looking at me with a ‘‘ what-do-you-think-of- 
this?’’ expression. Then for a long time he stood on one foot, 
generally the right, with the other nearly hidden among his breast 
feathers, and dozed. Then as the young began to whimper he 
jumped down and brooded them with his back turned to me. 
About 2.20 p.m. the Falcon gave the alarm, and the Tiercel 
flew off, but returned in a few minutes, pitching on A, and walking 
down it to the eyrie, where he resumed brooding. At 3.5 p.m. the 
Falcon called the alarm, and the Tiercel flew off; the alarm soon 
ceased, and the Falcon came down on to A and stood there a short 
time. She is not nearly so yellow about the breast as he is. His 
is quite creamy, whereas hers is an ashen white. The Tiercel kept 
calling to her, but she soon flew away, and he returned to resume 
his brooding till 3.30, when she again called the alarm, and he, 
flying off, joined her in calling it, and a few minutes later the arrival 
of my friends brought my watch to an end. 
Jasper Atkinson took the next watch, from May 21st to May 
zand, and his observations are pretty well a repetition of what I 
have described. C. J. King took the watch from May 22nd to 
May 23rd, and he records that the Tiercel has difficulty in covering 
young when brooding, owing to their rapid growth. At a meal 
at 4.50 p.m., when the Tiercel brought a blackbird, he gave one 
youngster a whole leg with the foot and claws, and when it could 
not swallow the foot he snipped the protruding part off with his 
