ACCIPITRES. ( 296 ) FALCONID^. 



THE HEN-HARHIER. 



COMMON HARRIER, BLUE GLED, BROWN GLED, WHITE-ABOON 

 GLED, BLUE KITE, BLUE HAWK, SEA-GULL HAWK. 



Circus cyaneus. 

 W^t (BleU,^ %\iz <3u^ (Bleti. 



The mittane'^ and Sanct Martin's Fowlfi 

 Wejid^ he had bee?t the Hornit Owl, 

 They set upon him with a yowl, 

 And gave him dint for dittt. 



Dunbar, Of the Fenzeit Friar of Tungland, 



In olden times, when all the lower parts of the county 

 were covered with marshes, bogs, and stagnant pools, as 

 described by Mr. John Wilson, late of Edington Mains, in 

 a Eeport on the Agriculture of Scotland,^ the Hen-Har- 

 rier doubtless bred in the Merse in considerable numbers, 

 for it would find suitable hunting-grounds among the 

 numerous swamps, where it would also make its nest and 

 rear its young in security. During the great advance of 

 agriculture which took place in Berwickshire from the 

 middle to the end of last century, most of the morasses were 



1 From the-Anglo-Saxou glidan, to glide. — Jamleson, Scot. Diet. 



2 Mittane, a bird of prey of the hawk kind. — Janiieson, Scot. Diet. 



3 M. Eugene Rolland says, in his Faune populaire cle la France (torn, ii., 

 " Les Oiseaux saiivages," p. 24), with regard to the Hen-Harrier being called in 

 that country L'Oiseau de Saint Martin : — " II est appele ainsi parce qu'il effec- 

 tue son passage a travers la France vers le 11 Novenibre, jour de la Saint- 

 Martin." 



4 "Thought." 



5 " Report on the Present State of the Agi-iculture of Scotland, arranged 

 under the auspices of the Highland and Agricultural Society, to be presented 

 at the International Congress at Paris iu June 1878." 



