The Prairie Falcon 



remaining wing-lining white with a few touches of brown; underparts pale buffy white 

 immaculate on throat, elsewhere marked with brownish gray of same shade as back 

 narrowly and distinctly on breast, broadly on sides and flanks, where falling into bars, 

 sparsely on crissum, coalescing in maxillary region into broad mustache. Bill dark 

 bluish, changing to yellow at base and on much of lower mandible; cere and feet yellow 

 iris brown. Young birds are darker, above, with feathers distinctly margined with 

 light rusty, and their underparts are tinged with pale buffy and more broadly streaked 

 — the younger the bird the richer the coloration. Downy young: Pure white. Length 

 of adult male: 406.4-457.2 (16.00-18.00); wing 292.1-317.5 (1 1. 50-12. 50); tail 165. 1- 

 190.5 (6.50-7.50); culmen 19. 1 (.75); tarsus 50.8 (2.00). Adult female, length: 469.9- 

 508 (18.50-20.00); wing 336.6-362 (13.25-14.25); tail 203.2-228.6 (8.00-9.00); culmen 

 22.1 (.87); tarsus 57.2 (2.25). 



Recognition Marks. — Crow size; powerful, easy flight; light brownish gray 

 coloration, with size, distinguishes it from any related local species, especially the 

 darker Peregrine (in comparing these two species note especially the white cheeks of 

 mexicanus); varied screaming cries. 



Nesting. — Nest: None; eggs laid on floor of ledge or in cranny or tiny cave of 

 cliff, and this sometimes marked by old nest of Raven. Eggs: 4 or' 5; rounded ovate; 

 basally, and theoretically, white, blotched with russet and vinaceous gray. This is a 

 rare type. More commonly entire egg more or less suffused with a pale shade of the 

 pigment, against which deeper shades are more or less clearly outlined as specks, spots, 

 blotches, and clouds, or else overspread as superwashes. Hence, egg yellowish brown, 

 cinnamon-buff, cinnamon, sayal brown, mikado brown, pinkish white, light grayish 

 vinaceous or hazel, marked or clouded with darker shades, snuff-brown, hazel, and 

 liver-brown. Av. of 73 specimens from San Luis Obispo County in the Museum of 

 Comparative Oology 50.4 x 39.4 (1.99 x 1.55); index 78. Season: April; one brood. 



General Range. — Southern portion of western Canadian Provinces east to 

 eastern border of Great Plains, south through Lower California and Mexico, breeding 

 chiefly in Sonoran and Lower Transition zones. 



Distribution in California. — Resident in semi-arid Sonoran zones both east 

 and west of the Sierra Nevada. Not found in the humid coastal strip, and only casually 

 above Transition in the Sierras. Especially abundant along the inner coast ranges 

 fronting the great interior valley. 



Authorities. — Cassin {Falco polyagrus), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. vi., 

 1853, p. 450 ("California"); Fisher, Hawks and Owls of the U. S., 1893, p. 104 (food); 

 Cohen, Condor, vol. v., 1903, p. 117 (Mt. Diablo, nesting); Willett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, 

 no. 7, 1912, p. 48 (occurrence in s. Calif.); Dawson, Condor, vol. xv., 1913, p. 55, figs, 

 (nesting habits in San Luis Obispo Co.). 



THE 'problem of evil' has always bothered the theologian, and he is 

 bound to wrestle with it, because inconsistency is intolerable in religious 

 thinking. 1 But the bird-lover cannot be consistent. Within his little 

 province he cannot "love good and hate evil," for to do so were to lose 

 that joy in variety which is his endless delight. Nature herself is in- 

 consistent — fearfully so. Indeed, it is she who has set theology's prob- 

 lem. And if there be a "higher unity" or "religious synthesis" (and I 



•The basis of this article appeared in ' The Condor," Vol. XV., March-April 1913. Reproduced by courtesy 



l609 



