FLIGHT OF THE HEN-HARRIER 183 
How beautifully they glide along, in their 
circling flight, with gentle flaps of their expanded 
wings, floating, as it were, in the air, their half¬ 
spread tails inclined from side to side, as they 
balance themselves, or alter their course! Now 
they are near enough to enable us to distinguish 
the male from the female. They seem to be 
hunting in concert, and their search is keen, for 
they fly at times so low as almost to touch the 
bushes, and never rise higher than thirty feet. The 
grey bird hovers, fixing himself in air like the 
kestrel; now he stoops, but recovers himself. A 
hare breaks from the cover, but they follow her not, 
though, doubtless, were they to spy her young one, 
it would not escape so well. The female now 
hovers for a few seconds, gradually sinks for a 
short space, ascends, turns a little to one side, 
closes her wings, and comes to the ground. She 
has secured her prey, for she remains concealed 
among the furze, while the male shoots away, flying 
at the height of three or four yards, sweeps along 
the hawthorn hedge, bounds over it to the other 
side, turns away to skim over the sedgy pool, 
where he hovers a short while. He now enters 
upon the grass field, when a partridge springs off, 
and he pursues it with a rapid, gliding flight like 
that of the sparrow-hawk ; but they have turned to 
the right, and the wood conceals them from our 
view. In the meantime the female has sprung up, 
and advances, keenly inspecting the ground, and so 
heedless of our presence that she passes within 
