noble birds rear their young, returning to tlic same spot, for
the same purpose, many years in succession. This species
breeds annually in the Shetland Isles, and is found also in
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Lapland. Pennant, in his
Arctic Zoology, includes the Peregrine as an inhabitant of
the Uralian and Siberian Mountains ; and it is found also in
Greenland. In North America and the United States this
species is well known, and its habits are described by the
various naturalists who have written on the birds of that
country. Captain King, when surveying the Straits of
Magellan, found two birds which he considered to be young
Peregrines. Mr. Vigors and Dr. Horsfield have included
this species in their Catalogue of the Birds of New Holland,
published in the Transactions of the Linnean Society ; and
Dr. Andrew Smith has recorded it as inhabiting the vicinity
of the Cape of Good Hope.
The whole length of an adult Peregrine Falcon is from
fifteen to eighteen inches, depending on the sex and age of
the bird. The beak is blue, approaching to black at the
p oint; the cere and eyelids yellow, the irides dark hazel
brown ; the top of the head, back of the neck, and a spot
below the eye, nearly black ; the back and upper surface
bluish slate or ash colour, becoming lighter at every succeeding
moult, the males usually the most so : the feathers of the
back, wing-coverts, and tail, barred with a darker t in t ; the
primary wing-feathers brownish black, the inner webs barred
and spotted with rufous white; the front of the neck white,
with dark longitudinal lines; the breast rufous white, with
dark brown transverse bars; the flanks, under tail-coverts,
and the under surface of the tail-feathers, barred transversely
with dark brown and greyish white ; legs and toes
yellow, the claws black. The figure here given was taken
from a very fine female of large size, in its second year, but
still retaining one outer tail-feather of the first year on each
side. The wing and tail-feathers are not changed in the
Falconidce in their first autumn.
Young Peregrines have the head and upper surface of the
body and wing-coverts of a brownish ash colour, the edge of
each feather rufous ; the dark longitudinal streaks on the
white under side of the body more conspicuous, but gradually
shortening and spreading laterally, ultimately change
their direction, and become transverse. This change is first
observed on the feathers of the belly and flanks.
The vignette below represents the falconer bearing his
Hawks to the field,