THE MERLIN 279 



sitter is of! on recreation, both birds then being in 

 the air, it is not so easy. You must then either 

 watch from a long distance, if the lie of the ground 

 permits of it, since the Merlin is of a wary dis- 

 position ; or search assiduously be careful that 

 you do not tread on the eggs for the eyrie. Even 

 if no birds are present, that is if one proves 

 eventually to be "on," the other away foraging, 

 it still becomes no very arduous task to find the 

 "nest," so long as you feel satisfied that the birds 

 have not been tampered with in any way, and 

 in addition discover fresh kills in the immediate 

 neighbourhood. It is no bad plan to have searched 

 for young the previous summer. They are always 

 easy to find, not only by reason of their parents' 

 noisy remonstrances, but also because of the 

 quantities of feathers from different victims 

 littering the heather around the eyrie, and that 

 in its vicinity. 



To be turned down on a vast stretch of moor 

 to search, for a ' ' nest ' ' without any previous know- 

 ledge is, however, quite another affair : for, except 

 at their eyrie, Merlins are not much in evidence 

 they generally fly so low ; while, of course, 

 even if seen careering across the moorland, they 

 may well be miles from their breeding-haunt. Fail- 

 ing the very problematical chance of walking across 

 an eyrie accidentally, or the meeting with an 

 obviously perturbed Merlin, your safest road 

 towards success lies in looking out for likely killing 



