il8 THE FEATHERED TRIBE&. 



than five or six being in sight at a time, each keeping to a particular beat, until it had 

 completely examined it. Tlieir flight was in general low ; but though Mr. Drummond 

 and I watched them for hours at a time, and lay as still in the grass as possible, they 

 invariably rose out of gunshot as they passed over our heads, and the specimens were 

 procui'ed only by lying in ambush near the nest. Notwithstanding they appeared to be 

 almost constantly on the wing, we seldom saw them carry anything away ; and they 

 seemed on the whole to be less successful hunters than the little Falco sparverius, or the 

 lazy buzzards, that sat watching for their prey on the bough of a tree. A small green 

 snake is very plentiful in that quarter, and forms a considerable portion of the food of 

 tliis bird, whence its name of the ' snake hunter.' The nests that we observed were 

 built on the ground, by the sides of small lakes, of moss, grass, feathers, and hair, and 

 contained from three to five eggs, of a smaller size than those of a domestic fowl ; but 

 similar in shape, and having a bluish white colour without spots." 



A gentleman, who was shooting in Hampshire, by chance sprung a pheasant in a wheat- 

 stubble, and shot at it ; when, notwithstanding the report of the gun, it was pursued by 

 a hen harrier, but escaped into some covert. He then sprung a second, and a third, in 

 the same field, and these likewise got away ; the hawk hovering round him all the while 

 he was beating the field, conscious, no doubt, of the game that lurked in the stubble. 

 " Hence," says Mr. Jesse, " we may conclude that this bird of prey was rendered veiy 

 daring and bold by hunger, and that hawks are not always in a condition to strike their 

 game. We may further observe, that they cannot pounce on their quarry when it is on 

 the ground, where it might be able to make a stout resistance ; since so large a fowl as 

 a pheasant could not but be visible to the piercing eye of a hawk, when hovering over 

 it. Hence that propensity in game to cowering and squatting till they are almost trod 

 on ; which doubtless was intended as a mode of security, though it has long been rendered 

 destructive by the invention of nets and guns." 



" In the autumn," says another naturalist, " my partridges suffer much from the hen 

 harrier. As soon as the corn is cut, this bird appears and hunts the whole of the low 

 country in the most determined and systematic manner. The hen harrier, either on the 

 hill-side or in the turnip-field, is a most destructive hunter. Flying at the height of only 

 a few feet from the gi'ound, he quarters the ground as regularly as an old pointer, cross- 

 ing the field in every direction ; nor docs he waste time in hunting useless ground, but 

 tries turnip-field after turnip-field, and rushy-field after rushy-field, passmg quickly over 

 the more open ground, where he thinks his game is not so likely to be found. The mo- 

 ment he sees a bird, the hawk darts rapidly to a height of about twenty feet, hovers for 

 a moment, and then comes doAvn with unerring aim on his victim, striking dead with a 

 single blow partridge or pheasant, grouse or blackcock, and showing a strength not to be 

 expected from his light figure and slender though sharp talons. 



" I saw on a hill-side in Ross-shire a hen harrier strike a heath hen, I instantly drove 

 him away, but too late, as the head of the bird was cut clean off by the single stroke as 

 if done with a knife. On another day, when passing over tlie Iiill in the spring, I was 

 attended by a hen harrier for some time, who struck do^vn and killed two hen-grouse, 

 that I had put up. Both these birds I contrived to take from him ; but a third grouse 

 rose, and was killed and carried off over the brow of a hill jjefore I could get up to him. 

 There is no bird more difficult to shoot than this. Hunting always in the open country 

 though appearing intent on notliing but his game, the wary bird, with an instinctive 

 knowledge of the range of shot, will keep always just out of i-cach, and freciuently carry 

 off before your face the partridge yi)u have flushed, and perhaps wounded. 



