300 THE STONE FALCON. 



next step is to substitute an entire partridge for the ordinary diet, and by 

 degrees to teach it to pounce upon the dead bird as it is flung to a daily- 

 increasing distance. It is a good pigeon-hunter; and if the owner 

 choose to train it for smaller game, it is unrivalled as a chaser of 

 thrushes, larks, and similar birds, owing to the pertinacity with which 

 it carries on the pursuit, and the resolutely agile manner w^ith which it 

 will thread the mazes of branch and leaf in chase of a bird which seeks 

 for refuge in the covert. 



The Merlin frequently breeds in England, and makes its nest on the 

 ground, generally choosing for that purpose some spot where large 

 stones are tolerably plentiful and may serve as a protection to the nest, 

 as well as for a perch, on which the Merlin, like the Harrier, loves to 

 sit and survey the prospect. From this habit of perching on pieces 

 of stone it has derived the name of Stone Falcon, a title which has 

 been applied to this bird in Germany and France as well as in Eng- 

 land. Sometimes, but not often, the nest is made on some rocky shelf 

 on a precipice. The eggs are four or five in numb3r, of a light reddish 

 brown hue, covered with mottlings and splashings of a deeper tint. 



The color of the Merlin is very pleasing, but not very easy to de- 

 scribe, as it is not so conspicuous as in many of the hawks, and more- 

 over is rather different in the two sexes. 



The top of the head is a slaty gray, marked with dark streaks run- 

 ning along the line of the head ; the beak and upper portions of the 

 body are of a similar slaty gray, but without the dark lines. The 

 shafts of each feather are, however, of a dark brown, and give a very 

 rich and peculiar coloring to those portions of the plumage. The 

 pinions are black ; the upper surface of the tail is neirly gray, with 

 the exception of three faint dark bands, the last being the broadest, 

 and the tip white. The chin and throat are white, and the under 

 parts of the body are reddish fawn, thickly marked with patches of 

 a darker color and streaks of deep brown. The cere, legs, and toes 

 are yellow, the claws black, and the beak a slaty gray, deepening 

 toward the point, and slightly marked with longitudinal dark lines. 

 Round the neck runs a band of pale reddish brown, which also extends 

 to the cheeks, and there forms a patch on each side. 

 , This description belongs to the male bird, the coloring of the female 

 being of a rather different nature. The beautiful blue-gray which 

 tints the upper parts of the male bird is in the female of a dark red- 

 dish brown, marked with slender longitudinal streaks covered by the 

 black-brown shafts of each feather. The secondaries and the wing- 

 coverts are of the same hue as the back. The tail is brown, varied 

 Kvith five narrow streaks of dark brown, and the under surface of the 

 ■body is a very pale brown, marked with longitudinal dashes of a darker 

 iiue. The young of both sexes are nearly alike for the first year, after 



