44 Whatever 1s mother doing ? I want my din-din. 
watching his chance, got hold of it and sat down at once with it under 
his talons, holding it firmly while he tore at it. His sister also tore 
at it, and once or twice tried to pull it away from him and failed. 
Later on he stood up and in a careless moment she got it from him. 
Having lost the leg he picked up a dried piece of mallow stem and 
just swallowed it in time to prevent the first sister from taking. it, 
so she watched her sister, and finally got the leg from her and 
shuffled off behind a rock with it. There was no fighting or scream- 
ing in all this; they just grabbed it in an absent-minded way and 
lost it with as little care. I noticed to-day that one young female 
stood upon her talons and tried to walk, but fell over. The Tiercel 
repeatedly called for food between 10.45 and 11.45. The young 
settled down to sleep, but roused up and whimpered whenever they 
heard his cries. Something has evidently gone wrong with the 
feeding, and although I saw both birds after G. A. Booth heard the 
shots, some other shot elsewhere may have been successful. 
12.57 pm.: The young are echoing the Tiercel’s cries for food. 
When whimpering softly their cry is easily distinguished, but when 
loud is exactly like the adult’s. At 1.40 p.m. the young will have 
been without food for exactly six hours. At 1.15 the Tiercel had 
been calling continuously for fifteen minutes, sometimes ten calls 
in a series, and always echoed by the young. If the Falcon is dead 
it will be interesting to see if the Tiercel does any hunting. At 
x.20 I can hear a rock pipit flying about in alarm. I cannot hear 
the Tiercel’s wings, but he may be hunting as he has stopped 
calling. At 1.30 p.m. he arrived with a whole unplucked puffin. 
They were simply ravenous, and pressed on him so that he was driven 
with his back to the wall. Becoming cramped for room he dragged 
the puffin through the crowd into the right corner of the eyrie. At 
the beginning of this meal, which lasted twenty-six minutes, he 
ate several mouthfuls himself, disregarding their convulsive grabs 
and cries. Once he picked the bird up in his beak as if to leave, 
but it was only to get more room in the middle of the eyrie. Pre- 
sently a young female retired hors de combat to the mallow leaves, 
but still whimpering. She, however, came back to the scramble 
in a few minutes, and her place by the mallow leaves was taken by 
a young male, but as his crop seemed by no means full I was not 
