inch four lines in breadth. The male sits occasionally during
the period of incubation, and has been shot on the nest.
I h e young are hatched early in June, and are at first covered
with white down.
The Hen Harrier, though nowhere very numerous, is
pretty generally distributed in England, Ireland, and Scotland.
It inhabits the Hebrides and Orkneys, remaining in
those northern islands all the winter. I t appears to be less
perfectly known in Scandinavia; but has been killed on some
of the islands in the Baltic. Pennant, in his Arctic Zoo-
l°gy» says it is common in the open and temperate parts of
Russia and Siberia, and extends as far as Lake Baikal.
The Hen Harrier also inhabits Germany, France, Holland,
Italy, Turkey, and the Morea; it was obtained at Smyrna
by Mr. Strickland, and at Trebizond by K. E. Abbot, Esq.
Le Vaillant found it in Africa, and describes it under the
name of Le Busard Grenouillard. Colonel Sykes and
Major Franklin include the Falco cyaneus of authors in
their catalogues of the Birds of the Dukhun, and other parts
of India; and M. Temminck says it is also a native of
Japan.
Whether the Hen Harrier of North America be really
identical with the Hen Harrier of Europe, is a point that
is still debated. M. Temminck considers the specimens
from Africa, and also those of North America, to be identical
with those of Europe. Wilson the Ornithologist, the
Prince of Musignano, — who has added four parts to the
American Ornithology of Wilson, uniform in size and appearance
with the original work,—and Mr. Audubon, consider
the Hen Harrier of North America the same as that of
Europe. Dr. Richardson and Mr. Swainson, appear to
have some doubts on this point, but have adopted the nomenclature
and synonymes of the European Hen Harrier;
and indeed there is but slight difference in the markings of
the plumage in the birds of the two countries, and none
whatever in the habits. If this point of the identity of
these two birds be admitted, the Hen Harrier may then be
said to inhabit the whole of North America, in addition to
the other localities already enumerated ; and I may add, that
several species of true Harriers are now known to exist on
each of the large continents of the Old and New World. '
The male and female, it has already been stated, are when
adult so very different in colour as to have led formerly
to the belief that they were distinct species ; and we are
indebted to Colonel Montagu for a series of observations
detailed in the ninth volume of the Transactions of the
Linnean Society, and afterwards in the Supplement to his
Ornithological Dictionary, which, corroborated by the more
recent observations of others, have clearly determined that
the Hen Harrier and Ringtail are but the adult male and
female of the same species.
The whole length of the male is about eighteen inches;
the bill black, or bluish black ; the cere and irides yellow ;
the black hairs on the lore, or space between the base of the
beak and the eye, radiate from a centre, those in a direction
upward and forward meet and become mixed with those of
the opposite side over the ridge of the cere, hiding the nostrils
; the whole of the head, neck, back, wing-coverts,
wings, and upper surface of the tail-feathers, ash grey;
with the exception in my own specimen of a mottled brown
spot on the nape of the neck, the last remaining portion
of its former brown plumage; the wing-primaries nearly
black, the first the shortest and the lightest in colour, the
longest not reaching to the end of the ta il; the chin and
throat ash grey, like the other parts of the neck ; the breast
and belly lighter in colour, becoming bluish white ; thighs
and under tail-coverts white; under surface of the tail-
feathers pale greyish white, with traces of five darker bars;
the legs and toes slender and yellow ; the claws black.