BACKHOUSE : AVI-FAUNA OF UPPER TEESDALE. 



Buteo vulgaris. Common Buzzard. 



Twenty or thirty years ago the Common Buzzard was often 

 caught upon the Teesdale moors in watchers' traps, now, how- 

 ever, they are becoming extremely rare. I think I have only seen 

 two, and heard of very few more during the past five or six years. 



Cronkley Scar and Falcon Glints are places exactly suited to 

 these birds, which with their cousins the Peregrines will doubtless 

 turn up there still from time to time, but it is to be feared in 

 gradually lessening numbers, until Buteo vulgaris and Falco 

 peregi'iuus will be ^rarce aves' of the past. 

 Archibuteo lagopus. Rough-legged Buzzard. 



A single specimen was shot at Alillbeck near Newbiggin, by 

 ^Ir. AVearmouth several years since. 

 Aquila chryssetus. Golden Eagle. 



On old maps ' Highcup Scar ' was marked as the ' Eagle's 

 Chair,' and there are various other places actually nearer to the 

 Tees where they probably nested. 

 Accipiter nisus. Sparrow Hawk. 



Abundant in the fir woods. Breeds regularly. 

 Falco peregrinus. Peregrine Falcon. 



This noble bird, Hke the Buzzard, at one time inhabited 

 Falcon Clints and various other suitable places, rearing its young 

 annually : in fact, it would appear that Falcon Clints originally 

 took its name from this particular species, by which its chffs 

 were so commonly inhabited. 

 Falco aesalon. Merlin. 



Still, every year, one pair or more of these elegant little Falcons 

 nest on the high moors, both on the Yorkshire and Durham 

 sides of the Tees ; and although up to the present time they have 

 been hunted down as vermin — shot, trapped, or the young ones 

 destroyed — I have come to the conclusion that even from a 

 sportsman's point of view, the amount of harm done by them to 

 Grouse is so insignificant, that the advisability of allowing these 

 interesting birds more quarter seems evident. 



Xo doubt people who know most about them will tell you 

 plainly that they have found young Grouse lying in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the .Merlin's nest, probably more than once. 

 True, but as far as the Tees moors are concerned, I have 

 repeatedly found that by far the commonest remains round a 

 ]\Ierlin's nest are not young Grouse, but Meadow Pipits 1 



I advocate the preservation of this Falcon, because I consider 

 that the actual amount of harm done to young Grouse by a 

 pair of Merlins in a whole year is not sufficient to warrant their 



Naturalist, 



