66 Our mother teaches better than any man. 
plover sitting seven feet away without disturbing him, and at the 
Tiercel five feet away, and although. he looked quizzically at it 
he never minded the smell, which was convenient in my case. 
Their sense of hearing is extremely acute, although, as in other 
birds, constant repetition of a sound which is not followed by 
anything untoward leads eventually to no attention being shown. 
This trait, owing to superior boldness, was more marked in the 
Tiercel than the Falcon, and this sexual characteristic was also 
evident in the full-fledged young. I have not had any opportunity 
of watching the. young being trained to hunt after they leave the 
eyrie, but can readily believe that it is more efficient than when 
undertaken by the falconer. Sight is extremely acute, and on one 
occasion, when the Tiercel was standing on C, staring full-face 
at the lens which I was slowly moving, I suddenly realised that I 
was face to face with stereoscopic vision. I know this is altogether 
heterodox, and I know that belief is not proof, and although I 
failed to see how to prove it, I have little doubt that he was fixing 
both eyes on my proceedings. The third eyelid, which flashes across 
the eye now and again from the inner corner, is filmy and easily 
overlooked. It is represented in the human eye by the little 
fleshy lump in the inner corner. As. regards their psychology, 
I look upon birds in general as absent-minded beggars, with rather 
more reasoning powers than we, their rich relations, credit them with. 
By absent-mindedness I, of course, mean their wonderful instincts. 
Of the Peregrine language I only learned three phrases; but the 
use of a hiding contrivance greatly enlarges one’s appreciation of 
bird-language, a rich field awaiting investigation by ornithologists. 
In raising himself from the wild, man has cut himself off from 
much knowledge of the ways of his poor relations, knowledge some 
of which even. our immediate ancestors retained; for instance, 
the use of the great grey shrike as sentinel by the Dutch trappers 
of passage hawks, a use of a bird’s characteristic implying an 
intimate knowledge few museum authorities would care to claim. 
Modern bird-photography and Nature study are, however, again 
lifting the veil. In all this I wish it to be distinctly understood 
that I am simply a bird-lover, with some knowledge of photography. 
What little experience I have had of the official ornithologist 
