280 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



places. Therefore examine boulders, butts, posts, 

 or walls. Should you find several of these 

 objects close together all well-used as shambles, you 

 may be sure a " nest " is, or will be, not far away. 

 Perhaps these stations serve as a landmark to the 

 birds, as well as butcher's shops. 



In Anglesey amongst other districts the 

 Merlin sometimes breeds on the upper ledges of 

 sea-cliffs perhaps for want of its usual accommo- 

 dation. I have heard of " nests ' in fields of 

 bracken, while more well-authenticated instances 

 than are supposed exist of a pair occupying the 

 deserted nest of a Carrion-Crow or other branch- 

 builder. In fact, one such record came under my 

 own notice in Breconshire during the late spring 

 of 1903. The haunt selected was a delightful dingle 

 situate not far from a hill -farm, and wild enough 

 for anything, though for all that hardly the spot 

 where one would have expected to find the Merlin 

 breeding. This dingle is no more than two hundred 

 yards in length, the one bank sparsely clad with 

 bracken and gorse which culminates in a sapling 

 nursery " of firs and larches, the other thinly 

 planted with timber of no great age, oaks and 

 birches predominating. That year four large nests 

 were visible in these oaks, three of which had at 

 one time or another been the property of Carrion - 

 Crows, the fourth once a Kite's, though now a 

 site periodically occupied by a pair of Buzzards. 

 Indeed, on April 4th, these birds were frequenting 



