THE HARRIERS 177 



THE HEN-HARRIER. 



" I have shot female hen-harriers every month during 

 the winter," said one of the best professional gunners in 

 the Broad district to me one day ; " but," he continued, " I 

 never saw the male bird here at Christmas-time, only after 

 February or March, and oftenest of a summer-time." 



The female hen-harriers are not so very rare, and in the 

 dark days of winter you may often see them beating some 

 ten feet above the reed-beds and marshes, with heavier and 

 more laboured and more frequent beats of the wings than the 

 Montagu harrier : they are easily recognised when once seen, 

 though they sometimes hover like a kestrel, even in a blinding 

 snowstorm. I saw one of these birds, one early spring, hunt- 

 ing unconcernedly over a yellow snow-spangled reed-bed, 

 wandering away, a dark speck in the snow, fading gradually 

 down the powdery landscape over the wide marshes ; for they 

 go farther afield than the marsh-harrier, and beat a greater 

 round in their hunts for eggs, mice, young birds, young 

 rabbits and hares ; but young snipe are their favourite food. 

 But their usual beat in hard weather is the rond, where the 

 rails and waterhens and snipe congregate by the little trick- 

 ling rills left by the tide or melting ice. On a hard, bright, 

 east- windy day, when the reed is yellow and the sky blue, 

 and the dikes and rivers and ronds frozen hard, you may see 

 an old female hen-harrier beating heavily along the rond, 

 and suddenly stop and hover for a moment, like a kestrel 

 over a mouse, ere she darts down and seizes a shrieking 

 waterhen, taking her to the hard frozen river-wall to devour 

 hungrily in the keen air. And when hunger, that impels 

 all beings to extreme measures, shall have gnawed at her 

 empty stomach, and the rails and waterhens are scarce, she 

 has been known to hunt a full-sized hare, flying just above 

 him as the terror-stricken wretch ran along the frozen wall ; 



but the fenman disturbed the sport, and never saw the end. 



M 



