CLARKE: THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



FALCO iESALON Gmelin. 

 Merlin. 



A local resident. 



This dashing little falcon breeds sparingly on most of our 

 high moorlands, depositing its eggs among the heather and 

 showing a strong predilection for the vicinity of boulders, on which 

 it loves to rest. On the 9th of May 1877a nest was found on the 

 Ilkley Moors ; the old male being first observed sitting on a stone 

 post, which on approach he quitted, and flying low over the heather 

 put the female off her nest. The nest, which contained four eggs, 

 was merely a slight depression lined with and surrounded by burnt 

 heather stems. Mr. A. Roberts of Scarborough informs me that 

 Mr. Hebden of that town was on Seamer Moor one spring, when 

 he observed a Merlin leave a rabbit's burrow, and on inserting 

 his hooked walking stick pulled out a nest of small sticks with six 

 eggs. Mr. H. Smurthwaite of Richmond mentions in Morris's 

 Naturalist (1854, p. 80) that he once heard of a nest being found 

 in the centre of a field of young wheat — a most unusual occurrence. 



The Merlin breeds in the following localities : — On the high 

 moors of the Pennine Range it is reported from the neighbourhood 

 of Sheffield (for an interesting and lengthy account of its breeding 

 in this district, from the pen of Mr. Henry Seebohm, consult 

 ' Dresser's Birds of Europe,' part 38), Penistone, Hebden Bridge, 

 Halifax and Haworth, and from the Fells of Langden, Wad- 

 dington and Grindleton. In Craven and the district known as 

 " The Dales," it nests on the moorlands above Ilkley, Barden, 

 Pateley Bridge, Leyburn, Ripon, Richmond and Barnard Castle. 

 In the north-east it affects the Cleveland Hills and the moors 

 above Whitby and Scarborough. Its numbers are materially 

 reduced in these exposed localities by the use of that cruel 

 instrument the pole-trap. 



It is more frequently observed in the autumn and winter 

 months, when it is not so local, and instead of being confined 



Trans.Y.N.U,, 1878. Series B 



