Wanderings of a Naturalist 



numbers that even in the following season they are the most 

 conspicuous part of the nest^ and the eggs are laid on them. 

 Another thing worthy of note was that a well-worn path 

 through the heather extended from the nest quite three yards, 

 this seemingly pointing to the fact that when alighting with 

 prey the parent birds did not fly straight to the nest, but 

 walked from a little distance for better concealment. 



The young merlins, I should say, must have left the nest 

 at least three days previous to my visit. That would fix 

 the date of their departure as July 12, but it was quite possibly 

 earlier; so it would seem that young merlins do not remain 

 in the nest for a longer period than four weeks. 



On July 27 I paid a last visit to their nesting ground. 

 The moorlands were now becoming strangely quiet. Out of 

 perhaps two dozen pairs of nesting curlews, only a solitary 

 bird remained to utter her melancholy alarm note — all the rest 

 had reared their broods and had taken their departure for 

 the sea-coast in more southerly latitudes. Two pairs of golden 

 plover still guarded their young, but most of these birds, too, 

 had left, and meadow pipits no longer called in their own 

 cheery way; they had reared their second broods and had 

 lapsed into silence. The young merlins were no longer in 

 the vicinity. Under the guidance of their parents they were 

 ranging the moorlands and being initiated into the mysteries 

 of their craft, and I could but wish them well and that they 

 might escape the keeper's gun. As I left the nesting ground 

 the sky clouded, and soon a steady rain commenced to fall, 

 wrapping the moors in its haze, and bringing renewed life to 

 grass and heather, parched by weeks of drought and of 

 summer's sun. 



36 



