HEN-HARRIER 385 



Huntingdonshire about the same date, while a third was taken in 

 Shropshire so recently as 1890. On the other hand, the hen-harrier 

 resumed breeding in Cornwall in 1903, and has continued to do so 

 every year since. The only English eggs in the British Museum are 

 a pair from Dorsetshire and one from Northumberland, 



There are, however, in the Museum collection a number of eggs 

 from the Orkneys, as well as several from the mainland of Scotland, 

 and one Welsh specimen. From a large part of the west of Scotland, 

 where it was once common, the species has disappeared as a breeding- 

 bird, the last nest in the Argyll district having been taken in 1877. 

 In the north of Scotland, as well as in the Orkneys and some of the 

 other isles, it apparently, however, still breeds locally. In Ireland it 

 is now to be met with in many of the mountainous districts as a 

 resident, although in ever-decreasing numbers ; and there are several 

 localities from which it has disappeared. It may be added that, 

 except probably in the north, the species was a permanent resident 

 in the British Isles (as it is locally to this day), although it leaves the 

 greater part of northern and central Europe to winter in the soutn. 

 The resident British birds are reinforced on the eastern coasts by a 

 few arrivals in autumn from the Continent. 



Harriers take their name from the manner in which they fly leisurely 

 and regularly over their hunting-grounds on the moorlands and fens 

 in search of their prey, which comprises field-mice, lizards, frogs, large 

 insects, and in the breeding-season the eggs and young of other birds, 

 as well as occasionally a brooding female of the smaller species of the 

 latter. From the charge of doing harm to the chicks of game-birds 

 they cannot be defended. In beating for game harriers just skim the 

 tops of the moorland gorse and heather, and they generally rest on the 

 ground rather than on trees, from which habit they are liable to be 

 occasionally seized by foxes. The nest may be placed either in heather 

 or gorse, or in corn-lands ; a dry, rather than a marshy situation being 

 generally selected. A large platform of grass, about 5 inches in height, 

 mingled with a few twigs, and having a hollow in the centre, constitutes 

 the nest ; and in this are laid late in May or June from four to six 

 bluish-white eggs, occasionally speckled with rusty. The length of the 

 eggs varies between i^ and 2 inches. Although the hen sits very 

 closely, and will not budge at the approach of an intruder, she is 

 " given away " by the cock, who invariably raises a loud alarm-cry. 



2C 



