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Volume XV 
MarcK- April, 1913 
Number 2 
THE NESTING OF THE PRAIRIE FALCON 
IN SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY 
By WILLIAM LEON DAWSON 
WITH FIVE PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR AND ONE DRAWING BY ARLAN BROOKS 
T he ‘problem of evil’ has always bothered the theologian, and he is bound 
to wrestle with it, because inconsistency is intolerable in religious think- 
ing. But the bird-lover cannot be consistent. Within his little province 
he cannot “love good and hate evil", for to do so w'ere to lose that joy m variety 
which is his endless delight. Nature herself is inconsistent — fearfully so. In- 
deed, it is she who has set theology’s problem. And if there be a ‘‘higher unity” 
or “religious synthesis’’ (and I believe there is) we as nature students have 
naught to do with it. If we are to find satisfaction in things as they are, if we are 
to enjoy nature, external nature, we must surrender ourselves to admiration of 
beak and talon no less than of wing and song. We may champion the cause of 
our specialty — Birds against the world, if you like, and death to cat, weasel, and 
serpent — but you cannot adjudicate as between magpie and chick, hawk and 
sparrow, raptor and raptee. Or if you do, you will only make yourself miserable, 
and wherefore? 
All of which is artful preface to a declaration of love for that arch scamp and 
winged terror, the Prairie Falcon (Falco mcxicaniis) . Ruthless he is, and 
cruel as death ; but ah, isn’t he superb ! To recall his image is to obtain release 
from imprisoning walls, glad exit from formal gardens and the chirping of spar- 
rows. To recall his scream is to set foot on the instant upon the bastion of some 
fortress of the wilderness. Away with your orange-bowered bungalows ! Give 
me a sun-burned battlement in the hills of San Luis Obispo County. A 
plague on your dickey birds ! Let me dare the displeasure of the noble falcon 
as he falls like a bolt from the avenging blue and shrieks out his awful rage. 
