THE PEKEGRINE FALCON. 
17 
much reduced by the malpractices of a certain sportsman/’ 
whose practice it was to lie in wait near the nest, and murder 
the parent birds as they returned carrying food to their young. 
In spring and summer it confines itself almost exclusively 
to the cliffs in w^hich it breeds, ranging widely over the 
neighbouring country as soon as the rock birds have taken 
their departure. Of course, like all birds of prey, it has but 
very few friends, and is regarded as a bloodthirsty robber, 
worthy to suff'er death for his crimes ; but although it does 
sometimes visit the haunts of man, with sudden swoop carrying 
off an occasional favourite rabbit or chicken, these visits are 
but seldom made. It is true that the havoc committed among 
the feathered tribes is something enormous, but its persecutors 
should remember that there is no game in Shetland, and that 
the birds killed are for the most part so abundant that their 
sum total is merely a drop in the ocean. As a fair average 
instance of the nature of the prey, I may mention that at one 
of the feeding-places I found the remains of the following ten 
species, viz., — golden plover, peewit, ringed plover, curlew, 
puffin, wild duck, purple sandpiper, common gull, herring gull, 
and lesser black-backed gull. The whole of the above are so 
plentiful that it would require a small army of Peregrines to 
make any perceptible diminution among them. 
In the month of September I have seen two of these birds, 
accompanied by two or three young ones as large as themselves, 
and nearly as strong upon the wing, in the rabbit warren at 
Balta; the parents stationing themselves upon the highest 
ground, as if for the purpose of keeping watch, and the young 
ones skimming over every part of the warren, frightening the 
rabbits considerably, but never, so far as could be observed, 
catching one. 
The Peregrine is said to pair for life, and the observations of 
most recent ornithologists seem to confirm the supposition. 
Like the Eagle, it will lay year after year in the same spot, 
even when repeatedly robbed of its eggs. I am now almost 
convinced that although it will sometimes occupy a nest of 
B 
