666 
Wild Birds Usefid and Injunous. 
mots, lapwings, snipe, cuckoos, kestrels, hares, rabbits, and 
doubtless any other bird or beast that it can conquer. 
The Buzzard (Buteo vulgaris), another large hawk, is veiy 
different in its habits from the fearless and dashing peregrine. 
Indolent and harmless though it is, no mercy is shown to it by 
gamekeepers and loafers ; it is a hawk, a big hawk, and there- 
fore it must be slaughtered. It is very pleasant to watch one of 
these grand birds sailing slowly and majestically on motionless 
wings in wide and graceful circles. Its presence, too, has a 
practical as well as a picturesque aspect ; for its appearance 
effectually drives the ring-doves from the corn, and many mice 
and rats are destroyed by it. The harm which it does to game 
is very slight, and the destruction of a few rabbits and leverets 
can scarcely be considered a sin. Its food consists chiefly of 
mice, rats, moles, snakes, frogs, lizards, earthworms, beetles, 
grasshoppers, and even carrion ; for I had a fine bird which lost 
its life through taking an unfortunate fancy to the paunch of a 
rabbit with which a vermin trap had been baited. 
I recently saw one, a wanderer on the fells, sitting lazily on 
a crag within a short distance of me, and it was sad to think 
that we might still have them nesting commonly with us, w'ere 
it not for the senseless persecution which has been indiscrimi- 
nately meted out to all hawks alike. 
The Merlin (Falco oesalon) is the only other hawk still re- 
maining to us in sufficient numbers to justify its inclusion in 
the present paper. The adult male is only about ten inches in 
length ; the plumage of the back is blue-grey, and the breast 
rufous, with dai’ker brown markings. The young birds and 
females have the upper parts dark brown, and the under surface 
brownish-white, with dark brown patches. The female is about 
twelve inches in length. This beautiful little falcon may be 
distinguished from the kestrel by the absence of chestnut colour- 
ing ; and from the sparrow-hawk by the long and sharply pointed 
wings. 
A few pairs still nest amongst the heather of our moorlands, 
but, unfortunately, more and more rarely every year, owing to 
the persecution which they suffer at the hands of gamekeepers. 
The harm which the merlin does to game is, however, infinitesi- 
mally small, its food whilst it remains on the fells consisting 
almost entirely of wheatears, yellow-hammers, pipits, and other 
small moorland birds, and of larks, dunlins, and similar 
wading birds when it is obtaining its sustenance on the sea- 
shore. It is a very bold and dashing little hawk, and its rapid 
evolutions on the wing confer a wild charm on the heather-clad 
fell, or on the desolate saltings of the coast. 
