136 BRITISH BIRDS. 



nests 'are often found robbed of their egjgs in the vicinity of its own ; 

 and Dr. Holland informs me that he ouce found Curlews' egg-shells in 

 the nest itself. This bird hunts chiefly in the morning and evening, 

 and is said occasionally to eat a young hare or rabbit which it has been 

 able to surprise. It also takes fish from the shallows, and young nestling 

 birds. Jerdon mentions that it will carry off wounded Snipe and Teal, and 

 that it often follows the sportsman. 



The note of the female Marsh- Harrier, according to Naumann^ is a high 

 and clear pitz-pitz, varied very frequently by a long-drawn peep-peep. 

 The male bird, on the contrary, especially in the breeding-season, utters 

 several pleasant notes, which resemble the word koi or Icai — not " keew,""^ 

 as erroneously given by Dresser in an unacknowledged free translation 

 from the same authority. 



The breeding-season of the Marsh-Harrier varies slightly according to 

 climate. In Gibraltar, where many o£ these birds breed, they begin to lay 

 by the end of March; but in Denmark and North Germany the eggs are 

 seldom laid before the second or third week in May. During the laying- 

 season the birds often soar to a great height, uttering a wailing cry ; and 

 when the hen is sitting the cock bird soars above the nest, as is the case 

 with many other raptorial birds. Irby mentions that in Gibraltar as many 

 as twenty nests have been found within 300 yards of each other; so that 

 it would seem the bird is partially a social one. The situation of the 

 nest varies but little ; though Montagu says he has found it in the fork 

 of a large tree, it is usually built upon the ground amongst the reeds, or 

 beneath the shelter of a bush, or on a grassy tussock in the reeds. 



At Riddagshausen, near Brunswick, on the estate of my friend Ober- 

 amtmann Nehrkorn, on the 10th of last May, I took a nest of this bird. 

 It was in a large extent of swampy ground, on the margin of one of the 

 numerous lakes and ponds where the reeds had not been mown down. 

 They are too thick on the ground for a flat-bottomed boat to be forced 

 through ; but the water comes above the knees as one wades amongst them. 

 In the middle of this bed of reeds the Marsh-Harrier had built. The nest 

 was very large, the outside composed of two thirds reeds and one third 

 small branches of trees ; and the extreme diameter was at least four feet ; 

 but the outside was very loose and straggling. It stood two feet above 

 the surface of the water ; and one could see underneath the nest by stooping 

 down. The inside of the nest was neat and compact, measuring less than 

 a foot across, and warmly lined with dry flag-leaves and dry grass. It 

 contained four eggs of the Marsh-Harrier and one of the Coot, which had 

 doubtless been taken thither to feed the sitting bird. The bird flew off as 

 we approached the nest ; and after we had left it we saw her return with a 

 bunch of sticks in her claws. Nehrkorn says they keep on adding to the 

 sides of the nest as they continue sitting, so that when the young are 



