equal to the sixth; second equal to the fourth. Upon the whole it appears that
specific distinctions among these birds, when drawn from the proportions of all the
quill feathers, unsupported by other considerations, are liable to much objection,
since we see that these characters vary in birds obviously of the same species,
while others, perfectly distinct, agree in this particular. The Egyptian Circus
gallinarius of Savigny (which, by a note of M. Temminck’s, attached to the specimens
in the Paris Museum, he seems to confound with the European species) has,
nevertheless, all the indications of being distinct: the membrane between the toes
is particularly small. There is a black variety of C. dneraceus {a specimen of
which was shot near Chartres by M. Marchand, and is described in the Bull, des
Sciences, iii., pi. 12, f. 1.), which must not, however, be confounded with another
species, from Southern Africa, having the plumage black and the tail barred with
white.
We have considered it better to offer these general observations to the reader,
rather than to hazard any direct opinion on the. birds before us. The whole of
the Harriers appear very imperfectly known ; and nothing short of an actual acquaintance
with the birds in a state of nature, or a perfect series of specimens of
different ages, will solve the doubts that now impede their clear investigation. —Sw.
DESCRIPTION -
Of (No. 3.) a mature male, killed on the plains of the Saskatchewan, May 17, 1827.
C olour of the dorsal aspect of the head, neck, and lesser wing coverts, bluish-grey, with
darker shafts. The back, scapularies, and tertiaries, have a deeper hue, verging to greyish or
broccoli brown. There is a patch on the nape of the neck composed of feathers having white
bases, brown centres, and ferruginous borders, all of which colours are partially seen. The
quill feathers and greater coverts are blackish-brown towards their points, bluish-grey towards
the base of the exterior webs, and white, barred or.spotted with brown, on the interior ones.
Some of the primaries and secondaries are tipped with white. The tail coverts are pure white,
forming a bar across the base of the tail an inch and a half wide. The two middle tail feathers
are bluish-grey, tinged with brown, bordered at the tip with soiled white, and crossed by five
blackish-brown bars, of which the terminal one is half an inch broad; the others are very
narrow and faint. The outer tail feather is brownish-grey exteriorly and at the tip, and its inner
web is white, with five narrow brown bars. The other feathers exhibit more grey and less white
the nearer they are to the middle of the tail, and have the brown bars extending to both webs.
Under surface.—The cheeks and auriculars are ash-grey, with a paler border to the
orbit. The short feathers composing the semicircle behind the auriculars are tipped with the
colour of the crown of the head ; but they have dark shafts and some pale yellowish-brown
mottlings towards their bases, which partially appear: in their texture they contrast strongly
with the more wiry auriculars. The under surface of the neck is slate-grey. The breast is
white, with a small rhomboidal cinereous mark in the centre of each feather. The belly and
thighs are white, with some minute scattered grey specks. The vent feathers are spot ess ;
but the under tail coverts have arrow-headed spots larger than those on the belly, ihe ta.
beneath is pale ash-grey with a slight tinge of buff, and is less distinctly barred than its upper
surface. Thé linings of the wings are pure white, with the exception of two or three browmsh-
grey bars on the secondary coverts.
F orm & c —The bill is small, much compressed, with a narrow ridge and a rather small
hook. Thé curve of the ridge is flatly elliptical until near the point, when it terminates in the
small arc of a circle. The cutting margin of the upper mandible is distinctly lobed. The cere
covers more than one-third of the ridge of the bill, and, in conjunction with the lores, is
clothed laterally with a short down, over which there is a layer of stiff, bristly black hairs,
disposed in a stelliform manner, their ends curving up and meeting with their fellows on the
ridge of the bill, so as to conceal the nostrils. The nostrils are broadly oval and longitudinal.
The lower mandible is rounded at the end. The folded wings are rather more than two inches
short of the end of the tail. The fourth quill feather is the longest; the third is scarcely a
line shorter ; the fifth is about half an inch shorter than the fourth ; the second a quarter of
an inch shorter than the fifth; the sixth two inches shorter than the latter; and the first is a
little longer than the seventh, which is more than an inch shorter than the sixth: the three
following ones diminish successively half an inch each. The webs of the primaries are comparatively
narrow at their points, and they are not so broad near the quills as those of the
Buzzards, described in the preceding pages, nor so abruptly sinuated on their inner webs. The
second to the fifth inclusive have distinct sinuations on their outer webs ; and the first to the
fourth inclusive are obliquely sinuated on their inner ones. The tail is long and slightly
rounded, the outer feathers being scarcely half an inch shorter than the middle ones. The
webs of the plumage covering the belly are much more decomposed than in the typical Buzzards.
The thighs and tarsi are long and slender. The outer thigh feathers reach about half
way down the tarsus, and the Tatter is clothed anteriorly with short feathers for nearly three-
quarters of an inch. The rest of the tarsus is covered before and behind with large transverse
scales, and it is very little increased in thickness at its junction with the toes. The toes are
slender and moderately long: the middle one is the longest; the outer one is longer than the
inner o n e a n d the hind one is the shortest, being only about half as long as the middle one.
There is a web between the bases of the middle and outer toes. The claws are very acute,
and are grooved beneath: the hind one is the longest and the outer one the smallest, but
D im en s io n s
Öf the male No. 3.
jensrth from the tip of the bill to the end Length of the bill along its ridge
of . the tail . . . • • • 20 9 ' ’ „ ' of the tarsus . . .
,, of the tail . . • 9 3 „ of the middle toe
„ of the longest quill feather 13 0 „ of its daw, in a straight line
' „ of the bill from the angle of the
„ of the hind daw „
mouth . . • • • 1 3
Inches. Lines.
. 1 0
. i2 :1s0
. 00 9 7