Page:The peregrine falcon at the eyrie (IA cu31924084757206).pdf/72

 52 woke to life and the young began to move about. First one and then another lurches unsteadily across the eyrie. But for their heads, they look, with their yellow claws, like hunchbacked, speckled farmyard fowls. Only their thighs are downy now, and with their great, dark, solemn eyes and formidable beaks each looks like a caricature of Mr. Gladstone in short cotton drawers. Their home a slaughter-house, where every meal entails a bird tragedy, there is a grim humour in their appearance. 'They are evidently getting hungry, for presently a big female routs out a bloody skull from somewhere behind the rocks and, holding it under her talons, tears at it for some time and then tries to swallow it. Failing in this, she puts it down and tries to reduce its size. One of the others