MARSH-HARRIER. 129 



Norman Conquest,* and in (rough's description ( of the 

 East Fen, between Reevesby and Wainfleet in Lincolnshire, 

 written not an hundred years ago, much suggestive material ; 

 while a sketch of the chief features of a third part of the 

 fen-country is given in the introduction to Mr. Stevenson's 

 ' Birds of Norfolk' (vol. i. p. liv.). Of the three species of 

 Harrier which once abounded in these very peculiar districts, 

 the present was the first to succumb, and the drainage of 

 Whittlesea Mere in Huntingdonshire, completed in 1851, 

 seems to have given the final blow to its existence as a bird 

 indigenous to this part of the country. Devonshire and the 

 eastern portion of Norfolk are now the only regular breeding- 

 places of this bird in England, according to Mr. More, 

 though its nest may be occasionally found in Cornwall, 

 Somerset, Dorset, Hampshire and Shropshire. In Wales, 

 Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire 

 and the counties from Yorkshire northward it has become 

 historical. In Scotland, on the same authority, Aberdeen - 

 shire furnishes the only locality where it breeds regularly, 

 though it does so occasionally in the counties of Perth, 

 Banff and perhaps Argyll, while a nest is said to have been 

 once known in the Orkneys. Mr. Robert Gray says that 

 the birds which occur in the northern kingdom have generally 

 been in the first or second year's plumage, and that, though 

 on the whole scarce, there are some districts, such as Nether 

 Lochaber and Appin, in which it is comparatively common. 

 In Ireland Thompson says it was resident in suitable localities 

 throughout the island, and Mr. Watters considered it the 

 most abundant of the larger birds-of-prey. 



Like the other species of the genus the Marsh-Harrier 

 roosts on the ground, and by day may be seen sitting on a 

 stone, post or low bush, or beating round and round the 

 reeds which skirt the water in search of prey, in its choice 

 of w r hich not much comes amiss small mammals or birds, 

 the young of larger ones, and wounded animals of all kinds 



* Liber Eliensis. (Edited for the Society A nglia Christiana by D. J. Stewart.) 

 London: 1868. vol. i. p. 231. 



f Camden's 'Britannia.' London: 1789. vol. ii. p. 271. 

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