94 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



that Lubbock said they might be well called the Norfolk Hawk, "their breeding 

 grounds are confined almost entirely to such quiet and preserved localities as 

 Ranworth, Barton, Horsey, and Hickling, where the shriek of the railway whistle 

 has not yet scared them from their natural haunts. In the above districts a few 

 pairs of the Marsh-Harrier, as I learn from the most reliable sources, remain 

 with us throughout the 3'ear." But as the marsh-men shoot down every one of 

 these birds the}' see, and rob their nests, it is to be feared that even in these 

 quiet sanctuaries since these words were written the birds have well nigh disap- 

 peared. Another part of England where, perhaps, a pair or two of Marsh- Harriers 

 may still be left to nest is the district round Wareham, in Dorsetshire, where the 

 birds are dangerous neighbours to the Gullery of Brown-headed Gulls at Ower, 

 robbing the eggs and devouring the young Gulls. In Scotland Mr. R. Gray 

 states that the Marsh-Harrier (he published his Birds of the West of Scotland in 

 187 1) was comparatively common in the district of Nether Lochaber, and also in 

 Appin in Argjdeshire ; he had himself been familiar with it as an East Lothian 

 species, having examined a number of specimens that had been shot in that 

 county, and had noticed many years before its partiality for ducks and pigeons 

 on the Tyne estuarj'. It was once common in many places in Ireland, until it 

 had been well nigh exterminated by poison laid for it by the keepers. The 

 Ornithologist of the present day, unless he visits one of the haunts where in 

 former times it was most numerous, and where a chance pair may still survive, 

 is hardly likel}- to encounter it anywhere in the British Isles, and must go abroad 

 and look for it in the 7narismas of South Spain, or in the marshes of the Delta 

 in Egypt, would he know what it is like on wing. Except in the far north the 

 Marsh-Harrier is largely distributed over Europe in country suitable to its habits, 

 avoiding woods and enclosed districts, and selecting moors and swamps. It extends 

 far to the east in Asia, and is met with in Africa so far to the south as the 

 Transvaal. 



The Marsh- Harrier flies rather heavily low above the ground when hunting, 

 pouncing down occasionally to secure some victim. The writer has encountered 

 it when he has been after snipe and wild- fowl in North Devon and Wales, and 

 once watched an old male fishing in some shallow pools left by the tide in the 

 estuary of the Taw, the bird plunging every now and then heavily and awkwardly 

 into the water. It used to be a frequent visitor to decoys for ducks, where its 

 presence excited great alarm in the assembled fowl ; its favourite food consists of 

 the eggs and young of Coots, Moor-hens, and Wild Duck ; fish, frogs, lizards, 

 water-rats, dragon-flies, etc., also enter upon its menu. This thief and plunderer 

 is easily to be caught in a trap baited with an e.gg. 



