38 WILD LIFE IN THE TREE TOPS 



In that far-off age when Falconry was the sport of Kings, the Merlin was, 

 on account of its docile disposition and charming ways generally assigned 

 to a lady, and in fact was known as the ' Lady's Hawk.' 



The Merlin of to-day, even in the wild state, would seem to be upholding 

 this enviable reputation, and the writer has never yet been so fortunate as 

 to have had dealings with any bird so good-natured or so confiding as the 

 little hawk appearing in the accompanying illustrations. It is indeed a delight- 

 ful experience and also a very rare one to meet a creature of the wild, 

 which almost from the first seems to recognize one as a friend. 



The usual nesting-places of the Merlin are confined to the open moors 

 of the North of England and Scotland, where the little hawk deposits her 

 eggs in some slight depression of the ground amongst the heather. So it 

 came as a double surprise when hunting one day for a Buzzard's eyrie in the 

 south-western corner of England, as described in the previous chapter, we 

 not only came upon a Merlin's nest but what was very much more 

 remarkable a Merlin's nest in a tree ! 



In the heart of such country, trees are, of course, very few and far between, 

 and it is difficult to say why the hawks should have selected such a lofty home, 

 particularly as acres of heather stretched in almost every direction. 



It was an uncanny rushing noise high in the air above us, very much like 

 the slithering whine of an approaching ' heavy,' that was really responsible for our 

 first sight of the merlin ; for glancing upwards to discover the cause of it, we 

 saw a Peregrine rushing earthwards in a headlong stoop. She obviously meant 

 business, but of a sudden, catching sight of us, she turned from her pur- 

 pose, and like an arrow, shot up again into the blue. 



Whilst watching the carrion crows mobbing the Buzzard we had really 

 been rather deeply impressed by their manner of stooping and of throwing up 

 but compared with the style of this expert, theirs was indeed a clumsy 

 performance. 



For a while we gazed at her diminishing form in admiration and wonder- 

 ment. What on earth can she have been stooping at ? And then, down in 

 the valley below where a mountain stream tinkled past a solitary clump of 

 beech trees, we saw what we had not seen before a female Merlin in hot 

 pursuit of a Carrion Crow. 



A Merlin ! Here indeed was an unexpected, and, at the same time, a 

 most welcome sight. And judging by the persistence of her attacks upon 

 her sable enemy, one would imagine that she had a nest somewhere close 

 at hand. Soon the two of them were going hard at it over the moor, the 

 crow avoiding the Merlin's stoops by cleverly shifting at the psychological 

 moment. The speed with which the little hawk overhauled the crow was 

 almost incredible, but since she put in a stoop at every few yards, and threw 

 up to the same height as that from which she started, she naturally had the 



