Page:The peregrine falcon at the eyrie (IA cu31924084757206).pdf/79

 Rh hard at it for about five minutes, after which he came to the front of the eyrie and vomited three or four times, each time ejecting a pellet of red flesh the shape of a casting, so that there was evidently something they did not like about that blackbird. Soon after this meal I found the Falcon standing on one of the rocks at the edge of the cliff, all draggled, evidently after a bath. She stood



there for three-quarters of an hour performing her toilet and afterwards standing on guard. Later on she flopped on to A and, walking along it, peered down into the eyrie where her young were preening themselves, unconscious of her presence. She had such a marked expression of maternal solicitude that I was tempted to take her, but refrained because her head was in shadow. Then