206 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. xm. 



to the spot it had left, and found a lot of fresh feathers and blood. This 

 confirmed what I had suspected, namely, that the male had brought 

 his kill to this place, and called the female off the nest, and she had come 

 and fetched the prey at the moment I saw the two birds together. 

 Evidently the nest must be quite near, and looking around, I guessed 

 on the high long sand-hill, just across a valley which divided it from the 

 one I was standing on. Crossed this valley and climbed the opposite 

 ridge, and almost immediatel}' flushed the female from a nest contain- 

 ing two young and two eggs. 



As was the case with all the nests found at " A," this one was well 

 and strongly constructed of dead grass stems. 



June 15th. — After spending the morning with the Nightjars, paid the 

 Merlins a visit. The female was on the perch on the opposite side of 

 the valley, and I flushed the male from the nest, which still contains 

 two young and two eggs. 



June i6th.— From the " hide " near the Nightjar's nest saw the male 

 Merlin chasing a Peregrine Falcon [Falco p. peregrinus) . 



Paid a visit to the nest at " A " in the afternoon. There are three 

 young now. 



I did not see these nests again until June 29th, when accom- 

 panied by my friend, we paid them both a flying visit. The 

 three young at " A " were all in fine condition, but we only 

 found two young in the nest at " B." Evidently the other 

 two eggs were addled, and had been thrown out or buried in 

 the loose sand, as the nest had been. There was no sign of 

 food in or around either of the nests. 



There are one or two points of interest regarding these birds. 

 The first is their choice of nesting sites, which seems to be not 

 unusual in south Wales, for besides the two cases mentioned, 

 T know of a third some twenty miles distant from " A," and in 

 The Birds of Pembrokeshire the Rev. Murray A. Mathew, writes : 



" The Rev. C. M. Phelps evidently met with a nest on the coast in 

 the south of the county. He found a nest on the top of one of the high 

 sand-hills not far from Tenby, which contained four eggs, and surmised 

 that they might be those of a Merlin." 



The second point is the substantial nature of the nests, so 

 different from the usual scanty scrapes of the species. The 

 photographs illustrate both points. 



A third point is the behaviour of the parent birds when 

 disturbed from the nest. When there were eggs or newly 

 hatched young in the nest, on being disturbed they retired, 

 and did not venture back until the disturber had left the 

 neighbourhood, but they became very demonstrative, 

 especially the female, when the young were older, coming to 

 meet the intruder as the nesting area was approached, 

 continually uttering their alarm-note and flying around in a 

 very agitated state. 



