374 CIRCUS CYANELS. 



attending to them, they always retire, at the commencement 

 of the breeding season, to the wildest hills, and during this 

 time not one individual will be found in the low country. For 

 several days previous to commencing their nest, the male and 

 female are seen soaring about, as if in search of, or examining, 

 a proper situation, are very noisy, and toy and cuff each other 

 in the air. When the place is fixed, and the nest completed, 

 the female is left alone ; and when hatching, will not suffer the 

 male to visit the nest, but on his approach rises and drives him 

 with screams to a distance ! The nest is made very frequently 

 in a heath bush by the edge of some ravine, and is composed 

 of sticks, with a very slender lining. It is sometimes also 

 formed on one of those places called scars, or where there has 

 been a rut on the side of a steep hill after a mountain thunder- 

 shower ; here little or no nest is made, and the eggs are merely 

 laid on the bare earth, which has been scraped hollow. In a 

 flat or level country, some common is generally chosen, and the 

 nest is found in a whin or other scrubby bush, sometimes a 

 little way from the ground, as has been remarked in the de- 

 scription of the American birds. The young are well supplied 

 with food, I believe by both parents, though I have only seen 

 the female in attendance ; and I have found in and near the 

 nest the common small lizard, stone-chats, and young grous. 



" When the young are perfectly grown, they, with the old 

 birds, leave the high country, and return to their old haunts, 

 hunting with regularity the fields of grain, and now commit 

 great havock among the young game. At night they seem to 

 have general roosting-places, either among whins or long heath, 

 and always in some open spot of ground. On a moor of con- 

 siderable extent I have seen seven in the space of one acre. 

 They began to approach the sleeping ground about sunset ; 

 and, before going to roost, hunted the whole moor, crossing 

 each other, often three or four in view at a time, gliding in the 

 same manner as that described by Dr Richardson of the Cir- 

 cus Americanus. Half an hour may be spent in this way. 

 When they approach the roost they skim three or four times 

 over it, to see that there is no interruption, and then at once 

 drop into the spot. These places are easily found in the day. 



