228 OUTDOOR LIFE IN ENGLAND 



hawks, is a resident in this country, breeding 

 on the moorlands, chiefly from Derbyshire north- 

 wards. In length the female measures some 

 twelve inches, as compared with twenty-four 

 inches across the wings. The colour of its 

 plumage is slaty-blue above, the throat white ; 

 the under parts reddish, with blackish - brown 

 streaks ; the tail also bluish-gray, with broad 

 black bars, and tipped with white. The male bird 

 is two inches shorter than the female. Colonel 

 Irby states that the female very rarely lives to 

 acquire the same plumage as the adult male. 



It is stated that the merlin clutches its victim 

 by the throat until it is quite dead ; the falcon 

 breaks the neck or opens the jugular- vein ; while 

 the short-winged hawks (the goshawk and the 

 sparrow hawk) kill with the foot, being pro- 

 vided by nature with long, sharp talons and a 

 powerful foot for the purpose. I may remark, 

 for the benefit of the reader, that the falcons or 

 long-winged hawks differ from the short-winged 

 or true hawks in the following respects : The 

 British falcons possess a kind of tooth on the 

 upper mandible, and the second primary feather 

 is the longest, or is equal in length to the third. 

 The iris of the eye of the falcon is dark, whereas 

 that of the short-winged hawk is yellow. 



The merlin, if unmolested, is apparently in the 

 habit of making its nest in the same place annually. 

 There is, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, 

 a merlin's nest which, from having been added 



