184 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



swept wings seem to come in contact beneath the body. I have not 

 timed the wing-beats by a watch, but the intervals seem to be about 

 one second. Whilst these sounds are being produced the flying bird 

 is always over the tops of the trees in which other birds continue to 

 make the faint hoot, or No. 1 sound, and it is thus possible that the 

 wing-clappings are in answer to tbe hoots. Perhaps the females are 

 the hooters, and the males the clappers. The clapping is the loudest 

 sound made, and might be heard at double the distance that one could 

 hear either of the other sounds. I have not heard the slightest sound 

 uttered whilst these birds fly away if disturbed in the woods, or when 

 they fly over the fields prey-hunting, when probably, and of necessity, 

 they are always silent. — W. Gyngell (Scarborough). 



Peregrine Falcon in Warwickshire and Oxon. — A friend in South 

 Warwickshire, just over our borders, sent me a young male Peregrine 

 Falcon (Falco peregrinns), which had been shot on Dec. 3rd, 1904, 

 while sitting on an elm-tree in a wood, by the keeper, who said the 

 local Hawks had mobbed it. It is a good example of what falconers 

 called a Bed Tiercel, and is a true Passage Hawk, being supposed to 

 have arrived with a number of " foreign " Wood-Pigeons which came 

 into the district about that time. Whatever it had been feeding upon, 

 it was in very high condition, for it weighed If lb., but the only 

 portion of the food inside it, Mr. Schumach thought could be recog- 

 nized, and sent to me, was the foot and tarsus of a Thrush. The 

 Tiercel measured 16'6 in. in total length ; wing, 12-7 in. ; cere and 

 eyelids bluish grey, dashed with yellow ; bill pale bluish horn, tip 

 horn ; legs and feet very pale dull yellow. The Peregrine Falcon is a 

 regular visitor to the southern midlands on the autumn migration, 

 living, I believe, largely on Wood-Pigeons, though Partridges are also 

 taken, and, I think, Mistle-Thrushes, and perhaps some other birds. 

 I once saw what I believe was a Peregrine Falcon attacking a bunch of 

 travelling Starlings very high in the air. The Falcons which haunt 

 the reservoirs prey upon the wildfowl. On Nov. 4th, 1898, I saw a 

 beautiful blue Peregrine (a female from the size) fly low over Byfield 

 Reservoir, causing a lot of Coots sitting on the edge to scuttle into the 

 water in a great state of alarm. I heard one year of two Peregrines 

 shot at different dates in November at Boarstall Decoy, where they 

 would be very unwelcome visitors, and might render the fowl shy of 

 the pond if they remained there long. During the severe weather at 

 the end of November last year we were, one very cold day with snow 

 on the ground, trying to get a couple of coveys driven over us from a 

 big high-lying stubble ; but a "big Hawk" upset the drive, causing 



