268 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



The marsh and hen-harriers, too, frequent the moors and 

 heaths of the Forest, especially the latter, locally known as the 

 " blue hawks." Some few pairs of these breed here, and in 

 1859 a nest containing three young birds was found near Picket 

 Post by a woodman, and another in 1862, with three eggs, on 

 Beaulieu Heath. One of the Forest keepers described the fern 

 for some distance round a nest, which he discovered, as com- 

 pletely trodden down by the young birds, and so littered with 

 feathers and dirt that, to use his words, the place had 

 exactly the appearance of a goose-pen. A woodman, too, who 

 in 1860 was set to watch a pair near Ocknell, gave me an 

 interesting account of his seeing the old birds breaking off 

 the young tops of the fern to form their nest. I have never 



whence it flew up, perching for a moment on a holly, and then making off 

 to the woods. On June 4th, however, I observed a hen bird fly out of a 

 hole, about twenty feet from the ground, in an old beech in Woolst one's 

 Hill, on the east side of Haliday's Hill Enclosure. There were, how- 

 ever, no eggs. On the 5th I went again, and the bird, when I was about 

 fifty yards from the tree, again flew off. Still, there were no eggs. I 

 did not return till the 9th, when the nest, now pulled out of the 

 hole, had been robbed. It was made of small sticks, and a considerable 

 quantity of feather-moss, and some fine grass, and in general character re- 

 sembled the nests of the bird found by Mr. Hewitson in Norway. In the 

 holes were the bones of young rabbits, but these had, from their bleached 

 appearance, been brought by a brown owl, who had reared her brood there 

 in the previous summer. I afterwards learnt where the three eggs had been 

 taken in 1861 ; but there was nothing, with the exception of a few sticks, in 

 the hole, which was in this case about ten feet from the ground, and placed 

 also in a beech on the edge of Barrowsmoor. Great caution, however, must 

 be exercised regarding the merlin's eggs ; for I am inclined to think that the 

 kestrel, contrary to its usual practice, sometimes also breeds in the Forest 

 in the holes of trees. The egg mentioned at p. 264, foot-note, brought to 

 me on June 17th, 1862, I have every reason to believe is a merlin's, but 

 could not quite satisfy myself as to the evidence. 



