opened contained tlie remains of lizards. Mr. Gird’s bird was probably
engaged in the pursuit of frogs. It is found also near Grahams-
Town.
Mr. Atmore writes:—“ Meiring’s Poórt: Got a fine adult female
of P. typicus. She was full of frogs. This accounts for their sitting
so long on stumps, etc. by pools of water. They are very easily
procured ; not at all shy but scarce.”
Mr. Ayres has obtained the present species in Natal, and it was
met with on the Zambesi by the late Dr. Dickerson, who collected
two specimens there. Dr. Kirk, however, did not meet with it.
Andersson did not find the bird in Damara Land, but Señor Anchieta
has sent to the Lisbon Museum a single example from Gambos in
the Mossamedes district.
Adult. General colour rusty pearl-grey, with a row of large black
spots from each shoulder; head crested, and with throat and chest
bluish. Planks, thighs, belly, and vent profusely barred, black and
white; * wing and tail feathers black, and tipped with white, the
latter with a brofed white bar across the centre; bare space round
the eye, cere and legs light-yellow. Iris dark-brown. Length, 2' 1";
wing, 1’ 6"; tail, 12".
Young. General colour brown, with rather paler margins to the
feathers, which are whitish at base; quills blackish brown ; the
secondaries paler brown, like the back, the latter much mottled with
white near the base; all the quills barred across with dark brown;
tail brown, tipped with fulvous, and crossed with five bars of darker
brown; head much crested, all the feathers fulvous at their base
and on their margins, brown in the centre, somewhat tinged with
rufous, especially on the sides of the crown and of the neck; forehead
whitish, slightly streaked with dark brown; a few feathers under the
eye and on fore part of cheeks black; throat and breast buffy white,
the feathers mesially streaked with dark brown and washed with
sandy rufous ; the lower breast sandy rufous, with fulvous tips; the
abdomen, thighs, and under tail-coverts barred with fulvous and
sandy rufous, the latter with dark brown; under wing-coverts fulvous,
mottled with rufous or rufous brown; the lower ones brown at tips,
like under surface of wing. (Sharpe, Oat. P.P., p. 49.)
Fig. Temm. PI. Col. 307.
* Mr. Gurney writes :—“ It should be noted that these bars are narrower in
the old female ( = P . malcazii oí Yerreaux) than in the male.”
9.. Cir cu s macrurus. Pallid Harrier.
Circus swainsonii, Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 34 (1867).
This Harrier has a wide range in South Africa, though doubtless
occurring, as Mr. Ayres states, only in our summer months, when it
arrives from the north, and makes South Africa its winter quarters.
Smith says he saw a few specimens near Cape Town, Natal, the
mouth of the Orange River, and the Tropic of Capricorn. Mr.
Jackson sends it from Nel’s Poort, and we have shot it near the
Observatory, Cape Town, in company with G. ranivorus. Dr. Ather-
stone also has procured it near Grahams Town. Our excellent
correspondent, Mr. Rickard, has also sent us word that he procured
one specimen near Bast London, and marks its occurrence near Port
Elizabeth as probable, but not yet thoroughly identified. Although
not recorded from Natal, Mr. Ayres has met with this Harrier in
the Transvaal territory, where, he says, it is seen “ only during the
summer months and then not plentifully. They skim quietly about
amongst the trees and houses of Potchefstroom.” On the west coast,
according to Mr. Andersson, it is “ migratory, appearing towards the
return of the rainy season in Damara and Great Namaqua Land.”
Its food consists of small quadrupeds, reptiles, birds, etc.; it
prefers a low damp locality.
According to a note received from Mr. Henry Buckley, who
has Indian specimens in his collection, the eggs vary from 1'56
inch x 1‘23 to 1‘64-x 2-3, and are bluish-white in colour.
The following descriptions are extracted from the editor’s ‘ Catalogue
of Birds ’ :—
Adult male.—Above pale bluish grey, the crown and intersca-
pulary region very slightly darker; lores, a distinct eyebrow and
sides of face white, the ear coverts slightly streaked with ashy; under
surface of body white with a slight greyish shade on the facial ruff,
on the sides of the breast, and on the greater under wing-coverts;
quills blackish brown, primaries externally washed with ashy grey, the
secondaries entirely of the latter colour and tipped with white;
primaries white at base of inner web, the rest of the quills entirely
white underneath, the secondaries with a nearly obsolete greyish subterminal
band; upper tail-coverts white, barred across with ashy
grey; middle tail-feathers uniform ashy grey, the rest white with
seven or eight bars of ashy grey, all tipped with white, under surface
of tail entirely white, the bars less distinct. Bill black ; feet yellow;