So bold as well as rapid is the Peregrine Falcon, that it
has frequently interfered and robbed the sportsman of his
game in the manner described under the article “ Golden
Eagle,” of which instances are related by Selby and others.
But these daring birds are not always successful.
The Peregrine Falcon most generally has its nest in high
and inaccessible cliffs, usually near the sea or lakes; but in
one locality, in Lapland, Wolley found that it bred on the
ground in a large marsh, and eggs from more than one nest
in this situation were obtained by his collectors for several
years.* Mr. Farman mentions its having its nest in a tree in
Bulgaria; and that is its habit in Java, according to Professor
Schlegel; instances also are known of church towers being
occupied. The eggs are commonly four in number, and except
that they are ordinarily of a much deeper colour, resemble
those of the last species. Some are uniformly suffused with
a brick-red, but a close freckling of dull crimson or deep
orange-brown, with spots of a darker shade, is more prevalent.
Occasionally a purplish hue is very perceptible, and
sometimes the colouring matter is irregularly collected into
large blotches, or only distributed at one end, leaving the
rest of the surface with the pale yellowish-wliite ground exposed.
They vary much in shape and size, measuring from
2-2 to 1*77 by L74 to l -48 in. A nest in Sutherland, described
by Wolley, was on a little platform, some four feet
square, in a comparatively low rock with a good deal of
vegetation, including ivy, upon it. The bare place for the
nest was about eighteen inches across, and thereon were collected
some little fragments of sticks and a multitude of
birds’ bones, with a few bones of sheep, probably brought to
construct the nest with, and also many little bits of stone,
* The persistency with which many birds-of-prey continue, during a long
period of years, to use one spot for breeding is tolerably well known ; but a very
remarkable instance is recorded in the * Ootheca Wolleyana ’ (p. 98). A Falcon’s
nest on a hill called Avasaxa in Finland is mentioned by the French astronomer
Maupertuis, as having been observed by him in the year 1736. In 1799 it was
rediscovered by Skjoldebrand and Acerbi. In 1853 Wolley found it tenanted,
and, by examining the remains of a young bird lying in or near the nest, proved
that it belonged to this species.
apparently from the rock itself. The presence of birds’
bones in or around the nest seems to be the rule, and upon
the top of the cliffs near St. Abb’s Head, where Selby visited
a nest, he noticed, scattered in great profusion, the castings
of the Falcons. Those examined were almost wholly composed
of the bones and feathers of Gulls and other water-
birds, but others were mixed with the feathers of Partridges
and the bones of Babbits and Leverets.
Falcons, and probably all birds-of-prey which feed 011
animals covered with feathers or fur, and thus swallow a
quantity of indigestible matter, relieve themselves by throwing
it up in the form of castings, which are oblong balls,
consisting of the feathers or hair and bones forcibly compressed
together. This habit of reproducing from the
stomach the remains of the last meal is common to the
Shrikes, the Swallows and most of the insectivorous birds
which feed on Coleóptera, or those insects possessed of
strong and hard external wing-cases. In like manner also
the Crows, when they have been feeding upon corn, reject
pellets consisting of the husks.
This species has been not inaptly termed peregrinus, since
it has been found in very distant parts of the world; though
the term was originally applied by the older authors to the
young birds on their southward migration in autumn. In
this country it still breeds, chiefly on the cliffs of the sea-
coast throughout the south of England from Cornwall to
Kent. Formerly there was annually a nest in the cliff at
Hunstanton, and one in the steeple of Corton Church in
Suffolk, and it is registered by Mr. More as breeding until
a few years ago in the district of the Severn, where, indeed,
it may possibly still be found as an occasional permanent
inhabitant. On the coast of Wales, particularly in the
south-west and north of the Principality, it may be regarded
as breeding regularly ; and again from Yorkshire northward
to the Shetlands, but it is far more thinly scattered in the
south than in the north of Great Britain, and is not at all
unfrequent on the rocky headlands of the north and west
coasts. In the mountainous parts of this island, the Pere