326 OBSERVATIONS ON 



HEN HARRIER. 



Mr. White of Newton 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. 1 Hence we may con- 

 clude 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 farther 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 co wring 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 

 gallince 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 

 home alive. On examination it proved to be colymbus glacialis 

 Linn, the great speckled diver or loon, which is most excellently 

 described in Willughby's Ornithology. 



Every part and proportion of this bird is so incomparably 

 adapted to its mode of life, that in no instance do we see the 

 wisdom of God in the creation to more advantage. The head 

 is sharp, and smaller than the part of the neck adjoining, in order 

 that it may pierce the water ; the wings are placed forward and 

 out of the center of gravity for a purpose which shall be noticed 

 hereafter ; the thighs quite at the podex, in order to facilitate 



1 [" I think White must have been misinformed as to the species of Hawk which 

 performed this feat. Its actions as described are exactly those of a Falcon, and do 

 not agree with any thing that has been observed in a Harrier ; so that I have little 

 doubt that the 'blue hawk' was an adult Peregrine Falcon." Newton, in Bell's 

 edition.] 



