HOBBY. 5 oP 
often appropriating the old year’s or deserted nest of some other 
bird—Hawk, or Magpie, or Crow—to be its bridal home. It lays 
two or three (very rarely four) eggs, beautiful, as all the Falcons’ 
eges are, and leaving no doubt as to their Falcon original to 
any one who is able to tell even “a Hawk from a Heronsheugh.” 
They are of a nearly uniform pale dull red in ground-colour, 
thickly spotted and mottled with shades of deeper red. Larks 
and other small birds are taken—often after lengthened chases— 
but, besides its feathered prey, the Hobby doubtless destroys 
large numbers of beetles and other insects of any considerable 
size.—fig. 4, plate I. 
11. RED-FOOTED FALCON—(falco rujfipes). 
Also Orange-legged Hobby, Red-legged Falcon.—Only a rare 
visitant, and very little known about either its nest or eggs. 
12. MERLIN—(Falco esalon). 
Also Stone-Falcon, Blue Hawk.—This beautiful bird makes its 
nest, in moor-land districts at least, almost invariably on the 
eround; though it is rather a piece of flattery to say that it 
makes a nest at all. A little hollow in the ground, and that 
usually not too conspicuous by the absence of ling in its vici- 
nity, with scarcely any lining, receives the eggs, three to five in 
number, and characterised by the reddish hue and spottings which 
seem to garnish the eggs of almost all the true Falcons. The 
nest is said to be sometimes built in a tree, and then, from Mr. 
Doubleday’s account, seems to be made of sticks, and lined with 
wool. The Merlin, or Blue Hawk as he is usually called here, 
is not a rare bird on our North Riding moors; and a very bold 
and active Hawk it is.—Tvg. 5, plate I. 
13. KESTREL—(Falco tinnunculus). 
Also Windhover, Creshawk, Hoverhawk, Stannel or Stanncl- 
