1 88 



BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



catch a bird, and watch him, you will find he oftener than 

 not eats it where it died, afterwards flying off to some 

 post or pile of litter, or the raised marsh-wall, to digest his 

 dinner ; but more generally to a post, where he sits looking 

 sleepily at you, sluggish as an alderman after a city dinner. 

 But he is not so common with us, and, lover of the coppice 

 that he is, he is not a great frequenter of the Broadlands. 



THE MERLIN. 



The little " blue hawk," as the marshmen call him, or the 

 " sparrow-hawk," as others call him, is rare, though I have 

 seen him dart over the marshes in winter like a rocket 

 striking at a red-poll, for they kill on the wing; but 'tis 

 a mere meteor-like vision, which makes me realise a story 

 told me by an old bird-catcher of how his brace bird, a 

 goldfinch, had its head taken clean off by a merlin on the 

 wing. Truly a blue and destructive comet of the marshland 

 is the little merlin. 



YOUNG MERLINS. (From life.} 



