96 Falconidce. 



its occasional food) I learn from Mr. C. Wyndham that it was. 

 attracted to the trap by an egg set there for a magpie. Another 

 is reported by the Kev. A. P. Morres as a fine female killed in 

 1873, close to Salisbury, by the head keeper of Clarendon ; and 

 the same gentleman calls attention to the greater prevalence of 

 this species, in comparison with its congeners, in the localities 

 which suit it best viz. the wide tracts of open, broken ground, 

 covered with heath and gorse, intermingled with marsh, which 

 may be met with in the New Forest. The Rev. G. Powell 

 announced one shot by Mr. G. Lopes' keeper at Greenhill in 

 1885. Mr. G. Watson Taylor tells me it has visited Erlestoke ; 

 and Mr. Tyndall Powell writes me word that a pair of old 

 and two young birds, now preserved at Hurdcott, and other 

 young birds preserved at Sutton Veny, were taken from his 

 rabbit warren above Fifield Bavant, and that they had their 

 nest in the gorse where they were shot and trapped. He 

 also adds that he occasionally sees hawks there which he 

 cannot absolutely recognise, but which he believes to be birds 

 of this species. In proof of its abundance in districts con- 

 genial to its habits, I will quote Professor Newton, who states, 

 on the authority of M. Barbier Montault, as given in the Revise 

 Zoologique for 1838, that in the department of the Vienne, near 

 Loudun, he has seen it, at the close of the breeding season, not 

 merely by hundreds, but by thousands, the birds collecting 

 towards evening to roost in company; and it may be observed 

 of this species as of the preceding, that it seldom, if ever, perches, 

 but passes the night on the ground among rough herbage or 

 heather. In Mr. Rawlence's excellent collection at Bullbridge 

 House is an interesting case of these birds, comprising a pair of 

 adults and three young, not a week old, two of which are white 

 and the third blue all procured within the county on property 

 belonging to Lord Bath. 



I will now bring this long chapter on the Falcons to a close 

 with one more extract from the register of Mr. Hayward, who 

 has discovered the following interesting facts from personal 

 observation : ' Hawks do not moult their wing and tail feathers 





