XXXVI PROLEGOMENA 



The Marsh Harrier occurs on marshy moorlands, places 

 congenial to the animals upon which it lives ; these are 

 Water-fowl, Water-rats, Lizards, and Frogs. The bird is 

 an inhabitant of this district, and is known by the name 

 of Moor Buzzard. I have seen it about Buckbarrow and 

 Goatscar, in Longsleddle.' 



Very special interest accompanies Dr. Gough's acquaintance 

 with the Kite : Among the Buzzards we have the Common 

 Kite, in the present day a rare bird. Should you have the 

 good fortune to meet with a specimen you will know it at once 

 by its forked tail, short bill, in shape rather like that of the 

 Eagle, and its short tarsi. And then pray remember our 

 museum, which does not contain a specimen. But the Kite 

 was formerly an inhabitant of this neighbourhood. When a 

 boy [he was born in 1804] I well remember seeing one that 

 frequented the N.E. end of Benson Knot. And you will 

 recollect that, in one of the characteristic letters of our late 

 friend and contributor, Mr. William Pearson, mention was 

 made of a pair that built for many years in a tree near the 

 Ferry House on Windermere. The reason why the Kite has 

 become so scarce (extinct almost I fear in this district) is pro- 

 bably owing to its depredations among poultry, a whole brood 

 of chickens having been carried off from time to time by this 

 pest of the farmyard. Hence, in self-defence, the farmer never 

 omitted an opportunity, on the return of the breeding season, 

 of marking the Kite's nest, and destroying both old and young 

 birds. 



One of his lectures, written on Dean Swift's mot, ' All the 

 product of all this will be found a manifest incoherent piece of 

 patch-work,' includes an amusing notice of a Lesser Black-backed 

 Gull. This bird entered Mr. Gough's possession as a young 

 bird and exercised a tyranny over its companion, a Herring 

 Gull. But Lams fuscus was also ' in the habit of having an 

 occasional contest with another denizen of the garden, a Common 

 Buzzard, which was tethered by a chain. The cause of con- 

 tention was food : and our Pet was always the aggressor. If 

 the Hawk had a dead rat or a piece of offal in his claws, the 

 Gull ventured within chain reach, and laid hold of the spoil. 



