BIRDS 200 



Peregrine. In a letter of January 8, 1833, lie wrote to Henry 

 Doubleday : ' The Hawk tribe which you appear most anxious 

 to have are extremely difficult to get here, and several of those 

 you mention have never to my knowledge been obtained in the 

 district. Since I have paid any attention to ornithology, I have 

 only been able to get hold of a single specimen of the Peregrine 

 falcon, which I presented to a friend/ 



After alluding to the local scarcity of the Long-eared Owl, in 

 a letter of 1836, T. C. Heysham continues: 'The eggs of the 

 Peregrine are still more difficult to get hold of in this neigh- 

 bourhood.' In a letter of June 19, 1841, the late Blackett 

 Greenwell informed Heysham that he had failed to obtain for 

 him any eggs of the Peregrine, to which the latter replied in a 

 draft of June 2 6 : ' I regret to find that you have not been 

 able to procure any eggs of the Peregrine falcon this spring. I 

 must confess that I am somewhat surprised at this, because I 

 have some reason to believe that several pairs annually breed 

 within ten or twelve miles of Alston. At the same time, I must 

 admit that their nests are often very difficult to get at. I hope, 

 however, that you will be more successful another year.' The 

 reason for Heysham's failure to procure Falcon eggs is obvious. 

 The Pennine range, or that portion which is included in 

 Cumberland, affords comparatively few suitable breeding-places 

 for the Peregrine, which has always found its stronghold among 

 the Lake mountains, though even fifty years ago it was cruelly 

 persecuted, as appears from the confessions of one who assisted 

 in its extermination. The Carlisle Patriot of April 3, 1840, 

 contained an announcement that ' a fine specimen of that rare 

 bird, the Falco Peregrinus of Lin., was lately shot at Warlock 

 Crag/ and this elicited a further statement from John Yarker 

 of Swinedale, dated April 7, 1840. The writer states: 'When 

 it was known to Mr. Graham and Mr. Cowart, gamekeepers to 

 the Earl of Lonsdale, that a pair of these destructive birds had 

 made their appearance in Swinedale, they met at my house on 

 the 14th of March last, and as they were very anxious to have 

 them killed, in consequence of their being so destructive amongst 

 the Grouse, I accompanied them with my gun to assist in trying 

 to kill them. We went to a rock called Hannah Crag, a short 



