Their Eggs and Nests. 55 



^onnd, amid the grass at the l)ottom of a furze or 

 other bush ; occasionaUy low in the bush itself ; and 

 aojain, in a tuft of reeds or rushes sufficient to serve 

 the purposes of concealment. In it it deposits three 

 or four eggs, white, or with only a tinge of milk-blue 

 about them. It feeds itself and its young with young 

 water-birds, if it can meet with them — and its name 

 suggests the idea that young water-birds may be met 

 with where itself is found — or young rabbits or birds ; 

 a few mice and small rats doubtless not coming in as 

 altogether unworthy of notice to such hungry cus- 

 tomers as four young " Harpies." 



HEN-HARRIER— (OVa/j- cyancus). 



I don't give a list of country or local names here, as 

 usual, because I wish to draw my reader's attention 

 to the fact, that the different names' applied to the 

 same species of Hawk are, in several cases, partly at- 

 tributable to the differences in size, and especially in 

 plumage, dependent on sex and age in the cases in 

 question. This is quite the case with the Harriers 

 generally, and particularly with the bird now under 

 notice. There is a remarkable difference in colour 

 between the male and female when adult, and a like- 

 ness when the former is immature and the latter an 

 old bird. Thus, the old male is mainly blue, the 

 female brown ; so he is often called the Blue Hawk, 

 or Dove Hawk, and she the Ringtail. Like those of 

 the Marsh Harrier, the eggs of the Hen-Harrier are 

 white, and are placed in a nest of small sticks and 

 long, coarse grasses, built upon the ground, four or 

 five in number, and not often varying from the 



