MAY 109 



cliffs tenanted by a multitude of sea-fowl. Still it 

 would not be difficult to find a bold escarpment from 

 which, as one nears it, the fierce falcon dashes out, with 

 clamorous outcry, from the overhung ledge where, in 

 the dry earth, she has scraped out a hollow amongst 

 the grass tufts for her big red eggs. She sweeps round 

 in great circles, cleaving the air with swift, clean 

 strokes, then settles on a rocky pinnacle, where the 

 glass shows her black moustaches and the wavy lines 

 on her breast. Meanwhile, her mate, the tiercel, 

 smaller and with shriller cry, is on the wing, tilting 

 at the ravens which have a nest further along the same 

 line of cliffs. Sometimes it comes to actual blows 

 and the black feathers have been seen to fly freely. 

 Happily a sentiment is spreading in favour of such 

 picturesque bandits as the falcon, a feeling that they 

 are beautiful in themselves and that their presence 

 adds interest to their wild and desolate haunts. 

 Thanks to the grace thus afforded, we may still in a 

 few localities, watch the fork-tailed Kite circling high 

 in the air above remote Welsh woodlands, as it did 

 some centuries since above the metropolis, when it was 

 the scavenger of London streets. The same senti- 

 ment has come to the rescue of the Golden Eagle, 

 which, once nearly extinct in Scotland, is again fairly 

 numerous in the Highlands. 



But our list of moorland birds is far from complete. 

 The Ring Ouzel shows Jlis white gorget where blocks 



