SEPTEMBER 233 



*63 Goshawks. *9 Ash - coloured hawks 



285 Common buzzards. (Montagu's harrier). 



371 Rough-legged buzzards.*1431 Hooded crows. 

 3 Honey buzzards. 475 Ravens. 



462 Kestrels. 35 Horned owls (? short-eared 



78 Merlins. owl). 



*63 Hen harriers. 71 Fern owls (goatsuckers). 



*6 Jerfalcons. 3 Golden owls (? barn owl). 



*8 



Now in this truly remarkable list those species which 

 may be properly classed as injurious to game are 

 marked with an asterisk ; perhaps the raven should be 

 starred also. I have not found it in my heart to in- 

 clude the osprey; for, although he preys on fish, what 

 sportsman can grudge this gallant bird the quarry he 

 takes in such chivalrous fashion, swooping from the 

 cloud to the flood ? Buzzards, kestrels, merlins, owls 

 it is not too late to plead for them even now; and 

 although they do occasionally learn vicious ways near 

 the crowded pheasant pens, surely we know enough of 

 their habits by this time to pronounce them absolutely 

 harmless on grouse ground. Then the unlucky fern- 

 owls, damned in the past by a series of misleading and 

 injurious synonyms goatsucker, night-hawk, fern-owl 

 it is only by rubbing in the truth, in season and out 

 of season, that Cimmerian ignorance can be brought to 

 understand that Caprimulgus is neither hawk nor owl, 

 nor sucks the milk of any living creature, but is, in 

 fact, nothing more terrible than a nocturnal swallow, 



