It is probable that the number of grouse on the higher hill ranges is very much kept in check by the great number of carrion-crows which everywhere exist among the fells. They impale the eggs of the red grouse upon their bills, and carry them away to eat at leisure. Under some wall or rock great numbers of egg-shells may often be found, testifying to the havoc which these sable marauders commit. This bird is one of the great features of the northern fell fauna, and is well known to the dalesmen and shepherds, who give it a bad character. In spite of much persecution, however, it is still a common resident, keeping to the sheep-walks in search of food, and breeding among the mountains. Although a great carrion-feeder, it will kill weak and ailing lambs, picking out the eyes and tongues of these when they are reduced to a helpless condition. They are resident birds in the north, and only the snows of winter drive them to the lowlands in search of food. As the hooded crow is only a seasonable visitant, it is but little felt as a poacher. The keeper has the shrikes or butcher-birds in his black list, but these do little harm, as their shambles in the blackthorns abundantly prove. Mention of the noble peregrine marks a poacher of the first water. As the bird sits watching from the jag of a mountain crag, it is the very emblem of passive speed and strength. Nowhere but in the birds' haunts can these attributes be seen to perfection. A trained falcon is slow of flight and uncertain of aim as compared with a wild bird. Its symmetry, its stretch of wing, its keen eyes and cruel talons, all speak to the same end. While some of the larger hawks are treated with indifference by the bird-world, not so the peregrine. A pair of buzzards pass over, but the cheep and chatter of field and hedgerow go on. A peregrine sails, down dale and all is hushed! A strange experience this at noon in the heyday of summer--but the shadow of the peregrine stills all life. A terrified screech is heard, and bird life seeks the thickest retreats. The depredations of the peregrine are greatest, of course, during the breeding season; and at this time it even carries off the newly-born lambs of the small, black-faced mountain sheep. Now hardly anything comes amiss. Partridges, ducks, pheasants, hares, grouse, plover--each is taken in turn, and the birds forage over a wide area. A barndoor fowl sometimes supplies a meal, or a dead sheep (so long as the flesh is sweet), thrushes, pigeons, gulls, and a number of water and shore-haunting birds. Once scrambling among boulders in search of Alpine plants, a large bird of prey was seen advancing on the wing. At a distance the under-parts appeared white, but the bird, coming directly over, enabled us to recognise distinctly the dark bars across the feathers of the abdomen. Its flight under these circumstances was a sort of flapping motion, not unlike that of a ringdove; and its head