Northern Observations of Inland Birds 141 



scale. It may stoop repeatedly from a height of ten or 

 twelve feet, even up to thirty feet, but this cannot be 

 regarded as the bird's characteristic method. Its usual 

 mode of procedure is curious and interesting. It is 

 given to skimming along just above the heather, following 

 every inequality of the landscape, rising here to surmount 

 a peat bank, dropping again at the other side — always at 

 the same height from the heather, which it so closely 

 resembles in shade as to be almost invisible till seen 

 against the sky. I have seen one approach a stone wall 

 at such speed that I thought it was going to dash itself 

 into it, but at the last instant it rose, skimmed the obstacle, 

 and dipped over the other side to its previous level. 



This skimming method of travel characterizes through- 

 out the merlin's methods of hunting, and curiously 

 enough it seems fond of following some clearly defined 

 line of travel, such as a sheep track or a human pathway. 

 At one time I used regularly to see a merlin tercel by a 

 moorland footpath along which I had occasion to travel 

 daily. This beautiful little creature had lost his mate late 

 in the spring, and seemed reluctant to leave the place of 

 his sad memories. Almost daily I saw him seated on a 

 boulder beside the pathway, and always his tactics were 

 the same. When I was within thirty or forty yards he 

 would rise and fly off, just above the trodden path, 

 following it exactly for a matter of two hundred yards, 

 when suddenly he would alight on another boulder. As 

 I came up to him he would again fly oflF, still following 

 the path, and so on and on till the farm buildings barred 

 his line of travel, when he would swerve abruptly to the 

 left and vanish from view, skimming low down under a 

 wall and so close to it that his right flight feathers almost 

 brushed the stones. 



It would seem that the merlin knows how closely his 

 colour when in flight resembles the blue hills that he 



