22 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS 



MARSH HARRIER. Circus ieruginosus (Linnseus). PI. 1, 

 figs. 7, 8. Length, ^ 22-5 in., $ 23 in. ; wing, $ 16 

 in., $ 17 in, ; tarsus, $ 2-75 in., $ 3 in. 



Formerly common in the English Fens, where it 

 was known as the Moor Buzzard, but now seldom 

 observed, except as an irregular visitant, and gene- 

 rally in autumn. In 1825 Messrs. Sheppard and 

 Whitear reported these birds breeding in some of the 

 marshes of Norfolk (Trans. Linn. Soc, xv. p. 6). 

 Mr. John Baker of Cambridge wrote in 1857: "It 

 is very doubtful if the Marsh Harrier at the present 

 day breeds anywhere in Great Britain : most cer- 

 tainly none do so in the Huntingdonshire or Cam- 

 bridge Fens, nor have any nests been found in that 

 locality since the draining of Whittlesea Mere 

 in 1851." Nevertheless it continued to breed in 

 other counties, such as the eastern side of Norfolk 

 (where a nest with three young was taken near 

 Yarmouth in 1862), and some of the wilder parts of 

 Wales and the west of England. In 1866 when 

 Stevenson published the first volume of his " Birds 

 of Norfolk," he described the breeding haunts of the 

 Marsh Harrier in that county as being then confined 

 almost entirely to such quiet and preserved localities 

 as Ranworth, Barton, Horsey, and Hickling, where a 

 few pairs remained throughout the year. One of the 

 latest instances of its breeding known to me occurred 

 in 1877, when a nest of the Marsh Harrier was found 

 on the Berwyn range of mountains in Denbighshire 

 (Dobie, " Birds of Cheshire, Flint, and Denbigh," 



