CIRCUS CYANEUS. 141 



brood (but I am afraid the real hen harrier is often that daring 

 little plunderer the sparrow-hawk). They will often be seen 

 hunting in pairs — male and female. They fly low, and, like the 

 greyhound after a hare, pursue their quarry until hunted down. 

 The hen harrier breeds chiefly in marshy districts early in May, 

 and to bear out the different situations and forms of birds' nest 

 I give different authors' accounts. Hewitson says — " In low 

 grounds (such as fens) the nest is placed upon the ground, and 

 is formed of so large a quantity of flags, sedge, and reeds as to 

 raise it 18 inches or 2 feet above the surface, to protect the eggs 

 and young from the water by which the low grounds are often 

 flooded. A correspondent has seen the nest raised nearly 4 feet 

 from the foundation. The eggs, though most frequently of a 

 spotless bluish white, are often slightly marked with yellowish 

 brown, mixed with a purplish hue, and sometimes with more dis- 

 tinctly defined spots of light brown." Selby says — "It breeds 

 on the open wastes, and frequently in thick furze covers. The 

 nest is placed on the ground, and the eggs are four or five, of a 

 skim-milk white colour, nearly as large as the marsh harrier." 

 Sir William Jardine says — " The habits differ considerably, 

 according to the district they inhabit. Where there is a con- 

 siderable proportion of plain and mountain, where I have had 

 the greatest ojiportunities of seeing them, they akvays retire at 

 the commencement of the breeding season to the hills, and 

 during this time not one will be found in the low country. 

 When the nest is completed, the female when hatching will not 

 allow the male to visit the nest, but rises and drives him with 

 screams to a distance. The nest is often made in a heath-bush 

 by the side of a ravine, and is composed of sticks, with a very 

 slender lining ; it is sometimes found in scaurs on the side of a 

 steep hill — here little or no nest is made, and the eggs are merely 

 laid on the bare ground, scraped hollow. In a flat country the 

 nest is found in a whin or other scrubby bush, sometimes a little 

 way from the ground." Thus we see that the hen harrier, like 

 all other birds, vary in the form of their nest. But they do not 

 now breed near St Andrews, having been driven from the moors. 

 Although their prey is generally small birds and the young of 

 larger, and young hares, rabbits, mice, frogs, &c. — which they 

 seize on the ground — they also pursue birds in open flight, and 

 have been often seen to seize red grouse, ptarmigan, and 

 partridges on the wing — even seizing partridges (which the dogs 

 of sportsmen have put up) and carried them off. When the 

 young are full-grown they, with the old birds, return to their old 



