26 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



shot out across the firs, encircled a tract of heather, 

 and returned to its perch. It is the merlin, smallest 

 of British falcons. A lark passes over its head, and 

 its wings are quickly raised, its neck outstretched. 

 Its mate joins it, and then ensues one of the most 

 fascinating sights in Nature that of two wild 

 merlins lark-hawking. Chasers and chased, circling 

 against the sky, rise higher and higher until they 

 become mere specks in the cloud-cap that overtops 

 the mountains. Great grouse poachers they are 

 too. They work together over the heather like a 

 brace of well-broken pointers. Not an object 

 escapes them ; however closely it may conform to its 

 environment, or however still it may keep, it is 

 detected by the sharp eye of the merlin and put 

 away. The " red hawk " is plucky beyond its size 

 and strength, and will pull down a partridge, as I 

 have witnessed repeatedly. The young of moor- 

 fowl, larks, pipits and " summer snipe " constitute 

 its food on the fells. It lays four bright red eggs in a 

 depression among the heather, and about this are 

 strewn the remains of its prey. To show to ad- 

 vantage this smallest of British falcons ought to be 

 seen in its haunts. It is little larger than a thrush, 

 and in the days of falconry was flown by ladies at 

 larks, pipits, and occasionally partridges. 



