^6 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



lu the Marsli- Harrier the facial disk is but slightly indicated, much less so 

 than in the Hen- Harrier. 



Family— FALCONID^. Ge7i2ts~CIRCUS. 



Hen-Harrier. 



Circus cyaneus, LiNN. 



THE Hen-Harrier, the '" Vuzz-Kitt " of the West Country, was once a fairly 

 common bird on all moors, heaths, and fens throughout the Kingdom ; the 

 majority seen were summer visitors, and when these departed their place would be 

 taken by other migrants arriving from the north in the autumn and winter, so 

 that specimens would occur all the year round. But persecution has well nigh 

 exterminated it as a nesting species in all but a few of the wilder districts, 

 although it has been a little more fortunate than the Marsh-Harrier, and still 

 maintains a precarious foothold. In North Devon, on Exmoor, where the shep- 

 herds stamp on all eggs they find, in Dorsetshire, Hants, on Salisbury Plain, in 

 Wilts., and in some of the Welsh counties, as also in some of the northern 

 counties, throughout Scotland, in the Hebrides, Orkneys, and in places in Ireland, 

 the Hen-Harrier continues to nest sparingly, but every year witnesses a diminution 

 in its numbers. In the Norfolk Broad district, it was regarded as the rarest of 

 the three English Harriers by Stevenson, who states that it seldom nested 

 and had, at the time he wrote his account of the Birds of Norfolk, " ceased to 

 nest." The adult male was at all times rare, and was chiefly to be seen in severe 

 winters, when a few crossed over from the Continent. The writer was very familiar 

 with the Hen-Harrier some 3^ears ago in North Devon where, in the autumn, 

 young birds were common enough on the marshes skirting the Taw estuarj^ and 

 also in Pembrokeshire. In the last county it was frequently met with on the 



