96 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 
In the Marsh-Harrier the facial disk is but slightly indicated, much less so 
than in the Hen-Harrier. 
Family—FALCONIDA:. Genus—CIRCUS. 
HeEn-HARRIER. 
Circus cyaneus, LINN. 
HE 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 years ago in North Devon where, in the autumn, 
young birds were common enough on the marshes skirting the Taw estuary, and 
also in Pembrokeshire. In the last county it was frequently met with on the 
