CHAPTER XVI. 



THE MERLIN ON THE MOORS. 



WHY the Merlin* should fail to breed though it 

 would necessarily be local, owing to a dearth of 

 suitable sites in the southern counties of England, 

 must ever, to me at any rate, remain a mystery. 

 Take, for instance, such apparently likely areas 

 in Sussex as the wide reaches of downland, and the 

 open, heathy portions of Ashdown Forest, and else- 

 where ; and in Surrey look at the miles of wild, 

 ling-covered waste round Thursley, Hindhead, and 

 the like. Would not these districts so you 

 would suppose afford the bird eminently desirable 

 breeding-quarters, resembling, as they do, albeit in 

 a tamer degree, the species' summer mountain-home 

 in more northerly latitudes ? Is not the food supply 

 there Pipits, Larks, and Wheatears (and especially 

 the first two), the Merlin's favourite fare almost 

 identical with that this hawk so relishes in its 

 normal haunts. The Merlin, moreover, does occur 

 there between autumn and spring. 



Putting aside then the " not proven " cases of 

 this species nesting in the southern counties, and 

 the few admitted instances of its so doing in the 



* Falco regulu* Pall. 



