Mr. Selby, who has observed and obtained several examples
in Northumberland, says, “ it skims along the surface
of the ground like the Hen Harrier, but with more rapid
flight, and more strikingly buoyant.” Its food is small
birds and reptiles : the stomach of one examined by Montagu
contained the remains of a Skylark ; and Mr. Orton
Aikin found portions of five lizards in a male killed in Cambridgeshire.
The nest is placed on the ground, generally
among furze; the eggs seldom exceeding four in number, very
similar, as might be expected, to those of the Hen Harrier;
they are white, one inch seven lines in length, and one inch
four lines in breadth. The young, according to Mr. Je-
nyns, are hatched about the second week in June.
Montagu’s Harrier has been met with in the counties of
Devonshire and Cornwall, and Mr. Eyton informs me he
has received one specimen from Dolgelly ; but farther than
this to the westward I have not traced it, no examples as far
as I am aware having as yet been recognized by Ornithologists
in Ireland. North of London it appears to be most
plentiful in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. At the latter
end of the summer of 1831, my friend Mr. Orton Aikin had
in his garden at Cambridge the young of each of our three
species of Harriers, and was bringing them up together.
They had been procured in the fens within a few miles.
Three or four specimens of Montagu’s Harrier are recorded
by Mr. Selby as having been obtained in Durham and Northumberland
; but Mr. Macgillivray says it has not, as far as
he knows, been observed in Scotland.
According to M. Temminck, and other naturalists, Montagus
Harrier is found in Poland, Germany, and France.
M. Baillon found it in the marshes of Abbeville, and considered
it a summer visitor, appearing in April and departing
in October. M. Temminck says it is very common in the
marshes of Holland. It inhabits Provence, Dalmatia, Italy,
and on the same parallel as far east as Trebizond. By some
authors the range of this species has been extended to India
and Africa.
The length of the adult male is about seventeen inches.
The beak is nearly black ; the cere greenish yellow, and
partly hid by the radiating hairs of the lore; the irides bright
yellow; the head, the whole of the neck, back, wing-coverts,
secondaries, and tertials, bluish grey; the secondaries with
three dark bars across, the last of which is visible externally
when the wing is closed ; the primaries almost black; upper
surface of the central tail-feathers bluish grey; the lateral
tail-feathers white, barred with reddish orange; breast, belly,
and under tail-coverts, white, with various longitudinal
streaks of reddish orange; under wing-coverts barred with
reddish brown; under surface of tail-feathers dull white,
barred with dusky grey; legs and toes slender and yellow ;
the claws black.
A young male in my own collection, from which the
figure was taken, killed while undergoing his second moult,
and in a gradual state of change, has the top of the head
and the feathers round the cheeks a mixture of brown and
rufous; ear-coverts grey; occiput varied with white; the
nape, back, scapulars, tertials, and upper tail-coverts, lead
grey; upper surface of all the tail-feathers, except the two in
the middle, barred with two shades of brown and rufous ;
middle tail-feathers with the outer webs uniform pearl grey;
the inner webs with five dark brown bands on a greyish
ground; wing-primaries and secondaries blackish brown;
great wing-coverts dark brown; lesser wing-coverts lighter
brown varied with rufous, and two or three grey feathers;
chin, and front of neck, pearl grey ; breast, belly, thighs, and
under tail-coverts, white, with a longitudinal rufous stripe on