The Prairie Falcon 



the slow eye, especially of the breeder of hens, settles upon the soaring 

 Buteo as the presumptive culprit. While his visits to the poultry yard 

 are by no means rare, and his offenses, judged from this narrow human 

 angle, are serious, we shall not stop to plead the thousands of destructive 

 squirrels which this bird accounts for, but only hasten on to view him, or 

 rather her, at home. 



The first scene is a wild adobe amphitheater, one of half a dozen 

 such in sight at any given station. A few shrubs manage to cling to 

 the upper reaches of the great earthen funnel ; but as the walls descend, the 

 pitch increases, until the vortex, 400 feet below, is fronted by walls, 

 perpendicular, or even undercut. Here at a point midway of the basal 



Taken in San Bernardino County Photo by Wright M. Pierce 



EGGS OF PRAIRIE FALCON IN OLD RAVEN NEST 



wall, Kelly's practiced eye discerned a Prairie Falcon squatting upon a 

 shady shelf. I stood on the very uppermost brim of the funnel whose 

 edges fell away sharply on either hand, and from my station it did not 

 seem that a bird could find footing, let alone lodgment, on the wall against 



1616 



