Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/105



Circus cyaneus, Linn, (sp.) Falco

snipe-shooting, it is generally met with. The first that came under my own notice appeared when a friend and I were in search of snipes, in a boggy spot among the Belfast mountains (Antrim), when a female bird hovered above us in the manner of a kestrel, and was not alarmed by our presence, nor by that of our dogs engaged in " beating " the ground immediately beneath : — her life fell a sacrifice to my gun. The species is scarce there. On the lower skirts of these mountains, the hen harrier is still more rarely seen, but has been met with "flying through the fields, and beating the sides of the hedges as it proceeded." Such birds were immature, and occurred late in the autumn or in winter ; — they were probably bred at some little distance, where there is an extensive tract of moor. At Claggan, &c, the nests have not uncommonly been found among the heath. In suitable localities, such as prevail throughout the greater part of the county of An- trim, the adult birds remain during the year, and the male is always conspicuous from his light-coloured plumage ; — appearing, indeed, at first sight like a sea-gull. A sporting friend in the county of Londonderry informs me, that there are many "white hawks " on his mountains at Ballynascreen, whose nests, — occa- sionally two in the season, — he has met with in the heath. The hen harrier is not included in Mr. J.V. Stewart's published catalogue of the birds of Donegal, but, in a letter to me from that gentleman, has been mentioned as a subsequent addition. When at "the Horn" in 1832, the gamekeeper alluded to his having the winter before, seen a "white hawk " strike a curlew (Nume- nius arquata) in passing, and break its wing, which so disabled the bird that it became an easy capture to my informant. About Bogay, in that county, old male birds are said to be frequently VOL. I.