THE MERLIN. 51 



county of Wicklow. My informant knew the. species of birds so 

 well, that the individual in question must doubtless have been 

 either the Falco subbuteo or F. rufipes ; probably the latter, as a 

 flight of them appeared in England that year. 



Very few specimens of F. rufipes, — a native chiefly of the more 

 eastern half of temperate Europe, — have been taken in England, 

 and the first on record, was procured in 1830. Their second ap- 

 pearance in that country was in 1832, in which year the first 

 mentioned specimen was obtained in Ireland. The species has 

 not been met with in Scotland. 



THE MERLIN. 



Falco cesalon, Gmel. 



Is indigenous both in the north and south of the island. 



It breeds about Claggan, in the county of Antrim; and its 

 nest, as well as that of the marsh and hen harrier, has been 

 found on the ground, among the heath, by the gamekeeper in va- 

 rious years. On the Mounterlowney and other mountains of 

 Londonderry and Tyrone, some of my sporting friends have met 

 with their nests, and young birds have been brought thence to Bel- 

 fast, to W. Sinclaire, Esq., who in due time trained them to the 

 pursuit of larks and snipes. In Donegal, the merlin is occasion- 

 ally met with in summer, but more commonly in winter, on and 

 after the first week of October.* The intelligent gamekeeper at 

 Tollymore Park (Down), states that this species breeds regularly 

 in the mountains of Mourne, where, in the summer of 1836 (when 

 the information was supplied), he saw four of their nests. The 

 young have frequently been brought from the neighbourhood of 

 Clonmel (Tipperary), to Mr. E. Davis, jun., of that town; as 

 they have likewise been from the vicinity of Youghal (Cork) to 

 Mr. R. Ball. A nest "in the Commeragh mountains (Waterford) 

 was merely a slight depression in the peaty soil, arched over with 

 heather, and situated on the edge of an enormous detached rock, 

 near the foot of the mountain. "t The species is common in 

 * Mr. J. V. Stewart. f Mr. J. Poole. 



E 2 



U. OF ill. ua 



