MERLIN. 30 
most westerly recorded limit of this species. It winters in South Europe 
and North Africa, where, according to Loche, a few remain through the 
summer, retiring to the highest districts to breed. Eastward it breeds 
throughout Northern Siberia, passing through Mongolia and Turkestan 
on migration, and wintering in South China, North-west India, and Scinde. 
Doubt encircles the movements of this, the prettiest of our British 
Falcons. It was formerly considered to be only a winter visitant to this 
country, which, so far as the southern portions are concerned, is no doubt 
correct. It has also been said to be only a summer visitant, and, like the 
Swallow, to take its departure southwards at the advent of winter. These 
several statements have undoubtedly been made by persons whose expe- 
rience of the bird has either been exclusively confined to its summer or 
its winter quarters, and, although to a certain degree correct, they are 
misleading. The Merlin, in those districts frequented by it, from 
North Derbyshire to the Shetlands, is a resident species, living on 
the moorlands and the mountains in summer, and retiring to more 
cultivated districts for the winter, in a similar manner to the Meadow- 
Pipit. Even in the wild country of the Shetlands, the Western Isles, and 
the Highlands the Merlin is found throughout the year—in summer on 
the mountains, in winter lower down, in more sheltered districts and on 
the sea-shore. The fact that the birds are almost always shot off most of 
their breeding-places has doubtless given rise to the opinion that they 
were migratory, these breeding-places being tenanted the following 
season most probably by young birds or birds passing over Great Britain 
on migration to more northern haunts, or the birds that have spent 
the winter in the southern counties. The birds found wintering in the 
south of England are, probably, migrants from North Europe, and not 
bred in Britain at all. It is quite possible that all the young birds bred 
with us migrate southwards, even though the old birds do not—a fact 
which is common to all, or nearly all, raptorial birds. Hence, if the old 
birds be shot, the breeding-places are not occupied until the return of the 
young birds, who seize upon any locality where the former occupants have 
been destroyed. ‘The latter would, if left unmolested, have remained for 
the winter, or wandered to the lowlands, to return in spring, leaving their 
young only to seek winter-quarters in the south. 
In summer the Merlin’s haunt is the wild moors and mountain wastes, 
the home of the Red Grouse—the brown breezy hills and valleys where 
grey rocks overgrown with heather and bilberry abound and steep moun- 
tain rifts and gorges occur. In winter it quits the moors, and descends 
to the cultivated districts, even to the sea-coasts. At this season it will also, 
like the Kestrel, frequent towns, and take up its quarters in church-towers, 
cathedrals, and large public buildings, preying upon the Pigeons or the 
Sparrows frequenting those places, or sallying out at intervals to the sur- 
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