56 The Birds of Pembrokeshire. 
The Hobby, being quite a bird of the woods, would not often 
be expected in such a bare and generally treeless county as 
Pembrokeshire. 
MERLIN, aio esalon—Resident; also a winter visitor. A few 
Merlins are resident, and the nest has been taken at various 
places in the county. We have heard of young birds having 
been taken from a nest near St. David’s, and one of them was 
kept for some time there, at Bryn-y-garn. In the summer of 
1886 Sir Hugh Owen saw a brood of young Merlins at Good- 
wick, in a patch of heather on the top of the cliff, at a spot where 
he has known the nest to have been placed for several years. 
We have also heard of a nest near Maenchlogog, on the Precelly 
Mountains. And the Rev. C. M. Phelps evidently met with a 
nest on the coast in the south of the county. He found a nest 
on the top of one of the high sand-hills, not far from Tenby, 
which contained four eggs, and surmised that they might be 
those of the Merlin. In the winter the Merlin is far from un- 
common, and we have seen it at Stone Hall on numerous 
occasions. One day, when we were waiting quietly in a small 
larch plantation for a shot at a Woodcock, we suddenly detected 
a male Merlin sitting on a branch level with our head, and only 
a few feet from us. The bird remained motionless on its perch 
so long as we stood still, and only flew off when we moved on. 
Mr. Tracy reports that during a period of fifteen or eighteen 
years he received as many as eight or nine Merlins to set 
up for different gentlemen in the county. In his district Mr. 
Dix considered the Merlin not uncommon as an autumn and 
winter visitor, and that immature birds were the most 
numerous. Sir Hugh Owen once caught a Merlin near Good- 
wick in a rat trap. The bird was little injured, and the second 
day after its capture was tame enough to feed from his hand. 
RED-FOOTED FALOON, Zinnunculus vespertinus.—A very rare 
accidental straggler from the south. Writing to us from 
Cuffern, on May sth, 1887, our friend, the late Mr. John 
Stokes, informed us: ‘‘ Two days ago I saw at Ferny Glen two 
