270 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



HEN HARRIER. 



A NEIGHBOURING gentleman sprung a pheasant in a wheat 

 stubble, and shot at it ; when, notwithstanding the report of the 

 gun, it was immediately pursued by the blue hawk, known by 

 the name of the hen-harrier, but escaped into some covert. He 

 then sprung a second, and a third, in the same field, that got 

 away in the same manner ; the hawk hovering round him all the 

 while that he was beating the field, conscious no doubt of the 

 game that lurked in the stubble. Hence we may conclude that 

 this bird of prey was rendered very daring and bold by hunger, 

 and that hawks cannot always seize their game when they please. 

 We may further observe, that they cannot pounce their quarry 

 on the ground, where it might be able to make a stout resistance, 

 since so large a fowl as a pheasant could not but be visible to the 

 piercing eye of a hawk, when hovering over the field. Hence 

 that propensity of cowring and squatting till they are almost 

 trod on, which no doubt was intended as a mode of security : 

 though long rendered destructive to the whole race of gallinse by 

 the invention of nets and guns.* 



GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOON. 



As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer-forest from 

 Bramshot across the moors, he found a large uncommon bird 

 fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which he brought 



* Of the great boldness and rapacity of birds of prey, when urged on by hunger, 1 have seen 

 several instances ; particularly, when shooting in the winter in company with two friends, a 

 woodcock flew across us closely pursued by a small hawk ; we all three fired at the woodcock 

 instead of the hawk, which, notwithstanding the report of three guns close by it, continued its 

 pursuit of the woodcock, struck it down, and carried it off, as we afterwards discovered. 



At another time, when partridge-shooting with a friend, we saw a ring-tail hawk rise out of a 

 pit with some large bird in its claws ; though at a great distance, we both fired and obliged it to 

 drop its prey, which proved to be one of the partridges which we were in pursuit of; and lastly, 

 in an evening, I shot at and plainly saw that I had wounded a partridge, but it being late was 

 obliged to go home without finding it again. The next morning 1 walked round my land without 

 any gun, but a favourite old spaniel followed my heels. When I came near the field where 1 

 wounded the bird the evening before, I heard the partridges call, and seeming to be much dis- 

 turbed. On my app caching the bar-way they all rose, some on my right and some on my left 

 hand ; and just befo e and over my head, 1 perceived (though indistinctly, from the extreme 

 velocity of their moti n) two birds fly directly against each other, when instantly, to my great 

 astonishment, down Iropped a partridge at my feet : the dog immediately seized it, and on 

 examination I found he blood flow very fast from a fresh wound in the head, but there was some 

 dry clotted blood on s wings and side ; whence 1 concluded that a hawk had singled out rny 

 wounded bird as the bject of his prey, and had struck it down the instant that my approach 

 had obliged the bird to rise on the wing ; but the space between the hedges was so small, and 

 the motion of the birds so instantaneous and quick, that I could not distinctly observe the oper- 

 ation. MARK-WICK. 



