82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



mouse in the grass, it pounces suddenly down, without seeming 

 to make any preparatory halt in its flight. It wheels rapidly to 

 the right or left, and with the same beat of the wings dashes down 

 upon the victim. It seldom ascends the hillsides above the line of 

 heather, nevertheless I have found amongst the remains of a 

 Hen Harrier's repast, on the top of a mound of stones and moss 

 on the moor, the feathered legs and feet of a newly killed 

 Ptarmigan. Occasionally the nest of a Hen Harrier is placed on 

 a very bare hillside, almost destitute of heather. When so placed, 

 as in the case of one I found in 1869, there is scarcely any 

 foundation laid at all, and it merely consists of a few loosely- 

 arranged heather stems, with a shallow depression in the centre, 

 lined with wiry, dry grass, cut into small pieces about an inch or 

 less in length. When placed in deep heather, however, it 

 presents a totally different appearance. It is sometimes more than 

 a foot in outside depth, and is composed of stout rank stems and 

 roots of heather. Its height is generally such as to bring the bird's 

 head, when sitting, slightly above the level of the surrounding 

 heather. 



Five eggs seems to be the number generally laid, but six is not 

 an unusual number; and Mr Eobert Gray records, in his "Birds 

 of Loch Lomond,"* an instance in which no less than nine eggs 

 were obtained in a " clutch." 



It is generally supposed that spotted specimens of the Hen 

 Harrier's eggs are comparatively rare, and form an exception to 

 the rule. Such has certainly not been my experience in Suther- 

 land, nor in Scotland generally, as out of numerous layings I have 

 received, taken, or seen, only one laying of five — now in ourt 

 cabinet — can be said to be perfectly free from markings, and these 

 eggs are so decidedly undersized as to present a most suspicious 

 resemblance to those of the JMontagu's Harrier; while their 

 shape is more elliptical than any other Harrier's eggs in our 

 collection. 



That the Hen Harrier occasionally pursues its prey on the wing 

 is proved by the following anecdote related to me by a shepherd, 

 with whom I had just been visiting a nest of the species. As we 



* Maclure & Macdonalcl's Illustrated Guide to the Western Highlands, 

 sec. vii., 1864. 



f Where the plural pronoun is used in the possessive sense, it refers to Capt, 

 Feilden's and my own collections, which are united. 



