MERLIN. 139 
RED-FOOTED FALCON. 
FALCO VESPERTINUS, Linnzus. 
This rare Falcon has only been obtained once in 
Cheshire. An adult female was shot by the game- 
keeper of Mr. R. H. Greg in May 1873, at Styal, near 
Wilmslow.! 
MERLIN. 
FALCO SALON, Tunstall. 
Many of the shepherds and gamekeepers in Longden- 
dale can remember the time when this beautiful little 
Falcon was fairly common; and although its numbers 
have greatly decreased, owing to the misguided zeal 
of the latter, a few pairs still nest annually amongst 
the heather, or on the crags in some of the more lonely 
cloughs. In the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, are four 
young birds in down, which Oldham obtained alive on 
June 18th, 1894, from a keeper who had taken them 
from a bare spot on a ledge of rock near the head of 
Crowden Brook. The feathers of the wings and tail 
hardly showed through the down; but the little crea- 
tures, already exhibiting the gameness and ferocity 
of their kind, threw themselves on their backs when 
handled, showing fight with beak and talons. We 
have observed the same characteristic in even younger 
birds which we have found in the disused nests of 
Carrion Crows, on the cliffs of the Anglesea coast. 
Possibly an odd pair of Merlins may succeed in rearing 
their young on the moors east of Macclesfield, as they 
1 F. Nicholson, Zoologist, ser. 11. vol. ix. p. 4238. 
