BIRDS 
have much chance of re-establishing itself. 
Dr. Heysham had a very extensive experi- 
ence of this harrier; in his day it was rela- 
tively a common bird, especially on the 
unreclaimed commons and mosses between 
Carlisle and the Solway Firth. The younger 
Heysham was told by Mr. Hodgson that the 
hen-harrier had nested and had been plentiful 
in the neighbourhood of Corney at the be- 
ginning of the century, but by 1844 the 
species had become rare. Mr. T. C. Hey- 
sham received a pair of harriers and a single 
egg from the neighbourhood of Alston in 
1831; but he wrote to Doubleday in 1831, 
that he found that hawks were ‘ getting 
scarcer every year.’ The only pair of hen- 
harriers that ever entered my possession, 
locally, used to visit the mosses between Car- 
durnock and Burgh every winter, preying on 
red grouse and other birds. They always 
disappeared when spring returned. At last, 
in January, 1886, James Smith killed them 
for his own collection. Subsequently he was 
persuaded to sell them to me for the Carlisle 
Museum. Another blue hen-harrier haunted 
the same district from December, 1888, to 
the end of the winter, and would have been 
killed, but I begged Smith to leave it in peace. 
A female bird was trapped in Westward 
parish in January, 1892. 
109. Montagu’s Harrier. Circus cineraceus 
(Montagu). 
A rare visitant. The late J. B. Hodg- 
kinson loved to talk of the specimen which 
he procured near Carlisle before 1840; it 
must have been killed in the breeding season, 
for it had been feeding, as he assured me, on 
the eggs of other birds. Many years later 
another, an adult male, was killed near Eden- 
hall. On November 2nd, 1892, an imma- 
ture bird was shot by a keeper near Kirklinton, 
and taken in the flesh to Mr. R. Raine. 
110. Buzzard. Buteo vulgaris, Leach. 
Locally, Glead, Shreak. 
The buzzard is resident in our wilder dales 
through the year, though the number of home 
birds appear to be swelled in some winters by 
fresh arrivals. It has many favourite resorts 
among our hills, but its numbers are sadly 
thinned by trapping. Individual pairs often 
settle in some of our great woods for the 
winter. These birds if unmolested would 
probably revert to the primitive custom of 
nesting on the limbs of forest trees. The 
famous oaks of Inglewood Forest must have 
held many a buzzards’ nest in earlier days. 
Even now the buzzard often deserts the dizzy 
precipices which chiefly afford it breeding 
ledges, in order to rear its brood in some 
highly accessible spot. It is a pity that the 
buzzard should ever be trapped. It feeds 
almost entirely on field voles, moles, young 
rabbits, etc., together with carrion. 
111. Rough-legged Buzzard. Buteo lagopus 
(Gmelin). 
A rare winter visitant. Although many 
buzzards are unfortunately trapped among the 
hills every winter, the birds thus obtained are 
almost invariably common buzzards. In fact 
no specimen of the rough-legged buzzard has 
been procured in the county since 1879, when 
a fine bird was trapped at Barron Wood. 
But specimens have been obtained at long 
intervals in different parts of the county, near 
Silloth in the north, at Bewcastle and Alston 
in the east, at Lamplugh in the west ; and 
even as near to Carlisle as Wreay Woods. 
112. Golden Eagle. Aguila chrysaétus (Linn). 
A very rare visitant. No eagle of any spe- 
cies is known to have been killed in the county 
during the last sixty years, but eagles have 
been seen on different occasions by competent 
persons. For example, the late Mr. J. Hewet- 
son Brown often related to me how he hap- 
pened to ascend Melbreak one day with a 
party of friends in the summer of 1868. He 
outstripped his companions, and on gaining 
the top of the hill a little in advance of them 
was astonished to find himself quite close to a 
fine eagle which was so intent upon feeding 
upon a dead sheep that it had not noticed his 
approach. When thus surprised, it slowly 
prepared to fly, and rising on the wing crossed 
over to Grassmoor on the opposite side of 
Crummock Water. Again, in July, 1872, 
that excellent observer Mr. R. Mann saw an 
eagle near Crookhurst. When first noticed 
the bird was almost within gunshot; but it 
rose in wide sweeps to a great height, and 
finally sailed off in a northerly direction, 
Mr. Mann noticed that the tail of this eagle 
was not white, but barred, and believed it 
to be a golden eagle. In the spring of 1775, 
an eagle, said by tradition to be a golden 
eagle, was shot in King Meadow, Carlisle, 
by Mr. Foster, the landlord of the Wheat 
Sheaf Inn, in consequence of the raids which 
it had made upon lambs. This bird was 
stuffed with its wings extended, and hung 
suspended from the ceiling of the kitchen at 
the inn for many years. The eagles which 
formerly nested among our hills were princi- 
pally sea-eagles ; but we can hardly reject the 
deliberate assurance of Richardson, that some 
of the eagles which bred in the Lake district 
were golden eagles. ‘One has this year 
I 193 ) 
