46 OUR RARE ft BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 



finding of a nest on his grounds, where the 

 species used to breed, in order that my brother 

 might run over to Ireland and photograph it ; 

 but it has for years remained unclaimed, and Mr. 

 J. H. Gurney has been unable to record a single 

 nest in Norfolk for the last decade. As may 

 readily be judged, we were therefore greatly elated 

 upon receiving a letter from our friend the Kev. 

 M. C. H. Bird last spring, to say that he had the 

 nests of both the Marsh and Montagu Harriers 

 for us to photograph. Such a great stroke of 

 good fortune could not be neglected for a day, 

 so down we went post haste to Broadland, where 

 we were met by Messrs. Bird and Gurney, the 

 former of whom took us all to the Marsh Harrier's 

 nest, situated amongst the deep sedge grass shown 

 in our oblong illustration. But alas ! the nest was 

 empty, and both the poor birds had been trapped 

 before the hen had had an opportunity of laying a 

 single egg. I found the remains of a leveret 

 which one of the luckless creatures had killed and 

 eaten a day or two before, and cut of! one of its 

 forefeet to add to my small collection of memen- 

 toes of rare birds. Mr. Bird says that a great 

 difficulty about the preservation of Marsh Harriers 

 is that they are easily trapped or poisoned, and 

 their habit of wandering over a wide area in 

 search of food renders them so liable to fall 

 victims to somebody's gamekeeper. 



The nest was placed on a quantity of broken- 

 down sedge grass fourteen inches from the 

 ground. It consisted of a small collection of 

 hemlock stems gathered from the banks of an 

 adjoining river, gladen, a briar stalk, and a few 

 bits of rushes, reeds, and dead grass. It was nine 

 inches in diameter, and had every appearance of 



