File:British birds with their nests and eggs (1896) (14748291054).jpg

Identifier: britishbirdswith03butl (find matches)
Title: British birds with their nests and eggs
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Butler, Arthur Gardiner, 1844-1925
Subjects: Birds Birds
Publisher: London, Brumby & Clarke
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: American Museum of Natural History Library

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ins a precarious foothold. In North Devon, on Exmoor, where the shep-herds stamp on all eggs they find, in Dorsetshire, Hants, on Salisbury Plain, inWilts., and in some of the Welsh counties, as also in some of the northerncounties, throughout Scotland, in the Hebrides, Orkneys, and in places in Ireland,the Hen-Harrier continues to nest sparingly, but every year witnesses a diminutionin its numbers. In the Norfolk Broad district, it was regarded as the rarest ofthe three English Harriers by Stevenson, who states that it seldom nestedand had, at the time he wrote his account of the Birds of Norfolk, ceased tonest. The adult male was at all times rare, and was chiefly to be seen in severewinters, when a few crossed over from the Continent. The writer was very familiarwith the Hen-Harrier some 3^ears ago in North Devon where, in the autumn,young birds were common enough on the marshes skirting the Taw estuarj^ andalso in Pembrokeshire. In the last county it was frequently met with on the
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o < X The 1 Ikn-Harrier. 97 liills and moors when he was in pursuit of Snipe; one day he saw three oldmales beating a swamp in line. Only too frequently decaying bodies would beseen suspended in keepers larders, and nests that had been destroyed would bereported. The flight of the Hen-Harrier is usually low over the ground, some-times the bird will hover in the air like a Kestrel, or skim swiftly like a drou.se.When suddenly come upon and disturbed in eating its prey upon the ground itmakes off with an awkward, wavering fliglit, but, on occasion, it can acquit itselfvery respectably on wing, as was once witnessed by the writer on the BrauntonBurrows, in North Devon, when an old male that was chased and stooped at bya Peregrine Falcon made a good ringing flight, mounting high into the air,successfully avoiding and shaking off its formidable enemy. The food of theHen-Harrier consists of frogs, snakes, rats, mice, voles, rabbits, leverets, smallbirds, young birds, and birds eggs, with

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