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OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 
HEN HARRIER. 
A NEIGHBOURING gentleman sprung a pkeasant in a wheat 
stubble, and shot at it ; when, notwithstanding the report of the 
gun, it was immediately pursued by the blue hawk, known by 
the name of the hen-harrier, but escaped into some covert. He 
then sprung a second, and a third, in the same field, that got 
away in the same manner ; the hawk hovering round him all the 
while that he was beating the field, conscious no doubt of the 
game that lurked in the stubble. Hence we may conclude that 
this bird of prey was rendered very daring and bold by hunger, 
and that hawks cannot always seize their game when they please. 
We may further observe, that they cannot pounce their quarry 
on the ground, where it might be able to make a stout resistance, 
since so large a fowl as a pheasant could not but be visible to tlie 
piercing eye of a hawk, when hovering over the field. Hence 
that propensity of cowring and squatting till they are almost 
trod on, which no doubt was intended as a mode of security : 
though long rendered destructive to the whole race of gallinae by 
the invention of nets and guns.* 
GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOON. 
As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer-forest from 
Bramshot across the moors, he found a large uncommon bird 
fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which he brought 
* Of the great boldness and rapacity of birds of prey, when urged on by hunger, I have seen 
several instances ; particularly, when shooting in the winter in company with two friends, a 
woodcock flew across ns closely pursued by a small hawk ; we all three fired at the woodcock 
instead of the hawk, which, notwithstanding the report of three guns close by it, continued its 
pursuit of the woodcock, struck it down, and carried it off, as we afterwards discovered. 
At another time, when partridge-shooting with a friend, we saw a ring-tail hawk rise out of a 
pit with some large bird in its claws ; though at a great distance, we both fired and obliged it to 
drop its prey, which proved to be one of the partridges which we were in pursuit of ; and lastly, 
in an evening, I shot at and plainly saw that 1 had wounded a partridge, but it being late was 
obliged to go home without finding it again. The next morning 1 walked round my land without 
any gun, but a favourite old spaniel followed my heels. When I came near the field where 1 
wounded the bird the evening before, I heard the partridges call, and seeming to be much dis- 
turbed. On my approaching the bar-way they all rose, some on my right and some on my left 
hand ; and just before and over my head, I perceived (though indistinctly, from the extreme 
velocity of their motion) two birds fly directly against each other, when instantly, to my great 
astonishment, down dropped a partridge at my feet: the dog immediately seized it, and on 
examination 1 found the blood flow very fast from a fresh wound in the head, but there was some 
dry clotted blood on its wings and side ; whence 1 concluded that a hawk had singled out my 
wounded bird as the object of his prey, and had struck it down the instant that my approach 
had obliged the birds to rise on the wing; but the space between the hedges was so small, and 
the motion of the birds so instantaneous and quick, that I could not distinctly observe the oper- 
ation. — Mabkwick. 
