and take wing without molestation. As no good cause
is promoted by over-statement, I will not attempt to deny
that all the Harriers are egg-stealers, but I would at the
same time remind game-preservers and our unfortunate
British agriculturists, that these birds are very active
and sharp-eyed enemies to field-mice, moles, and voles.
To the “ British bird-collector,” I fear that any appeal
on behalf of a comparatively scarce bird is only a waste
of time, and I can only say that these Harriers, in my
opinion, add greatly to the beauty and interest of the
moor-lands and marshes that still exist in our overcrowded
country. Montagu’s Harrier is a summer
visitor to those parts of Europe in which it breeds, and,
when allowed to live, leaves our Islands in October.
A certain number of this species, however, visit this
country from the Continent on the autumnal migration,
and (I write under correction) most of the records of
occurrence at that season refer to birds of the year. To
those acquainted with the four European Harriers, the
adult males of this species may easily be distinguished
from those of the Hen-Harrier by their darker colouring,
their greater comparative length of wing, and their more
buoyant and irregular flight; and having stated this, I
can write positively of having seen old male Montagu’s
Harriers on several occasions in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk,
and Devonshire. I never had the good fortune to find,
or even to see, an occupied nest of this bird in England,
and it was in Southern Spain that I first became intimately
acquainted with it in its breeding-haunts. It
arrives in Andalucia in April, and for some time after
its arrival seemed (in my experience) to remain in
suitable localities near the sea; as the season advances
these birds continue their journey, generally singly or
in pairs, up the valley of the Guadalquivir and nest
abundantly in the great marshes and corn-lands below
Seville. On one occasion, when posted in a pit in the open
“ marisma” for Great Bustard shooting, I noticed at least
seventy of the present species passing steadily to the
northward, evidently on migration, within shot of me,
besides many at various greater distances ; these birds,
without exception, flew within a few feet of the ground,
without pausing to hunt or reconnoitre the territory,
and were, in my opinion, all bound for some special
breeding-places already determined upon in what I must
call their minds. This was the only instance in which
I ever witnessed a numerous passage ” of these
Harriers, but I have several times observed one or two
crossing the open sea. Once established in their
nesting-quarters, these birds are constantly to be seen
scouring the country in all directions, now and then
hovering for a few moments, and occasionally alighting
to devour or to pick up some prey. They are easily
attracted by an imitation of the call of the Quail, and
no doubt catch many of those birds upon the ground;
but I do not remember ever to have seen one of these
Harriers in pursuit of any flying fowl, and I know that
in Andalucia their diet consists chiefly of frogs, lizards,
various insects, worms, small rodents, and the eggs of
ground-breeding birds. Colonel Irby, in his ‘ Ornithology
of the Straits of Gibraltar,’ mentions that he
found a regular “ colony” of this species breeding on a salt
marsh in Morocco, and I am assured of such cases in