H E N - H A R R I E R .
CIRCUS CYANEUS.
TIIOI'GU by no means an exceedingly rare species, the Hen-Harricr can scarcely lie termed common at tlic
present date in any part of the British Islands-1 have visited. A few pairs may still l>e found scattered over
the flat moors of Sutherland and Ross-shire; I have also met with several nests in different parts of
Caithness. In Inverness it seems less common ; and in Perthshire not more than half a dozen specimens have
come under my observation. Among the Hebrides it appears, from the information I gathered from keepers
and shepherds, to he found in considerable numbers, though T failed to notice more than two or three single
birds iu the Long Island. I have seen one or two beating over the Yorkshire moors in the neighbourhood of
Whitby, also iu Cumberland near Penrith. The broad-district of Norfolk, the fens of Cambridge, and the
marshes and furze-covered downs of Sussex are also at times frequented by this species ; females, however,
and immature specimens are most commonly met with. I have never observed a fiill-pluinaged male further
south than Norfolk.
Several writers assert that this Harrier has been distinctly observed to make an attack upon Grouse and
Partridges. Unless the bird had been seen in the act of capturing its prey, 1 should be inclined to lieiieve that
it must have picked up some of the victims struck down by the Peregrine. Small birds, such as Larks and
Pipits, together with mice, anil even frogs appear to be its most natural food; it will also, I imagine, carry
off the unfledged young of Partridges and Land-Rails. I never detected the remains of such prey at their
ni'sirug-quarters, though 1 frequently watched a pair hunting over a marshy hay-field in the Highlands which
was the resort of a brood or two of Partridges and at least a dozen pain of Land-Bails. I was never close
enough to determine exactly, even by the aid of powerful glasses, the nature of the prey fhey captured; but on
one or two occasions ii appeared to he either a dark-coloured field-mouse or, what is far mom probable, the
downy young of the Corn-Crake.
The adults of this species. I believe, with but few exceptions, remain as residents iu the district they
inhabit, the majority of the wanderers being the young while in Ihc immature stages. I have heard it slated
that these birds disappear entirely from the north on the approach of winter: this, 1 am inclined to consider, is
incorrect. I was informed by a keeper well acquainted with the species, that he had not iced two line old males
in perfect plumage during very severe weather in Glen Afterie, closely searching the river-side for prey. Their
usual haunts on the moors were deeply covered with snow; and they were probably driven to the low ground
in order to procure food. When punt-gunning early in the year on Loch Shin, in Sutherland, I observed a
male, apparently in change of plumage, limiting over the moors near the waterside on two consecutive days.
The females 1 have seldom recognized at this season.
The ffen-Harrier invariably rears its young on the ground. All the nests I examined in the north were
constructed of small heather-stalks, and lined with fine twigs and a few strands of coarse grass. As a rale
they were placed iu heather of moderate growth or rough tussocks of grass, at times much exposed to the