BLUE HAWK, OR HEN HARRIER. 
393 
different appearance which it assumes during its progress 
through the vjarious and extraordinary changes that its plumage 
are seen soaring about, as if in search of, or examining, a proper situation, are very 
noisy, and toy and cuff each other in the air. When the place is fixed, and the 
nest completed, the female is left alone; and, when hatching, will not suffer 
the male to visit the nest, but on his approach rises and drives him with 
screams to a distance ! The nest is made very frequently in a heath bush by the 
edge of some ravine, and is composed of sticks, with a very slender lining. It is 
sometimes also formed on one of those places called scars, or where there has been 
a rush on the side of a steep hill after a mountain thunder-shower ; here little 
or no nest is made, and the eggs are merely laid on the bare earth, which has 
been scraped hollow. In a flat or level country, some common is generally 
chosen, and the nest is found in a whin or other scrubby bush, sometimes a 
little way from the ground, as has been remarked in the descriptions of the 
American birds. The young are well supplied with food, I believe, by both pa- 
rents, though I have only seen the female in attendance ; and I have found in, 
and near the nest, the common small lizard, stone-chats, and young grouse. 
When the young are perfectly grown, they, with the old birds, leave the 
high country, and return to their old haunts, hunting with regularity the fields 
of grain, and now commit great havoc among the young game. At night they 
seem to have general roosting-places, either among whins or long heath, and al- 
ways on some open spot upon the ground. On a moor of considerable extent, 
I have seen seven in the space of one acre. They began to approach the sleeping 
ground about sunset, and before going to the roost, hunted the whole moor, cross- 
ing each other, often three or four in view at a time, gliding along in the same 
manner as that described by Dr Richardson of the C. Americanus. Half an hour 
may be spent in this way. When they approach the roost, they skim three or 
four times over it, to see that there is no interruption, and then at once drop into 
the spot. These places are easily found in the day ; and the birds may be caught 
by placing a common rat-trap, or they may be shot in a moonlight night. In 
both ways I have procured many specimens. 
When kept in confinement, they generally roosted on the ground, in a corner 
of the cage, three or four huddled together ; once or twice I have found them 
perching ; during the day, they rested mostly on the ground ; and only when 
alarmed rose to the cross-bars. I have never seen them perch in a wild state. 
Their flight is accurately described by our author ; and when hunting in this 
country, it is performed in the same manner, flying low over the gi’ound, beating 
the brushwood or rough cover, and along the hedges. They never take their prey 
on the wing ; but when pursuing, make a slight dash, and follow it to the place 
chosen for refuge. I once shot an old female which had driven a covey of part- 
ridges into a thick hedge, and was so intent upon watching her prey, that she al- 
