white or very slightly tinged with bluish-green, and occasionally
marked with a few spots of yellowish-brown. They
measure from 2'05 to 1-63 by from 1-56 to 1-32 in. The
male is said to assist in the process of incubation, and has
been shot on the nest. The young are hatched early in June,
and are at first covered with white down.
I he Hen-Harrier, though formerly numerous in the fenny
district known as the Great Bedford Level, was probably never
a very common bird in England. Owing perhaps to its greater
adaptability to circumstances it was however more generally
distributed in the breeding-season than the preceding species,
and, even a few years since, the information gathered by
Mi. Moie shews that it then continued to breed regularly in
several English counties—Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire,
Monmouthshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Durham
and Cumberland, as well as in both North and South Wales.
Occasionally too, nests were then found in Hampshire, Sussex,
Kent, Norfolk (in which county four fledglings were taken in
July, 1870), Shropshire and Northumberland ; but it had
ceased to breed in Wiltshire, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire,
Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire, though
m some of these only very recently. In Scotland the same diligent
collector of facts ascertained that it yet bred regularly in the
counties of W igton, Lanark, Selkirk, Haddington and Stirling,
m nearly all the Highland shires, the Hebrides and Orkneys’
and occasionally in the Shetlands. Mr. Kobert Gray states
that it is a very common species on all the Hebrides, where it
is known by a Gaelic name signifying “ Mouse-Hawk.” In
Ireland, according to Thompson, it is pretty generally distributed
over the island, and its nest has been found in various
suitable localities; but, in Mr. Watters’s opinion, it is of
considerable rarity in the eastern portion, though he has
known it to breed on the Wicklow mountains.
^ On the continent of Europe this species is very generally
distributed. In Norway, according to Herr Collett, though
it is said to occur so far to the north as East Finmark, a
single nest only has been known and that in Hedemark.
Wolley found it breeding in Lapland considerably beyond
lat. 68° N .; and in Finland it seems to be spread throughout
the country. In Russia and Siberia it is said, by Pallas, to
be a very common bird, especially in the desert of Great
Tartary. Later travellers describe it as breeding in Dauuria,
and Dr. von Middendorff obtained one still further to the
north-east, on the river Amgar, whose waters flow into the
Lena. It is said to occur in Japan, but Prof. Schlegel
refers specimens from that country to the American representative
species, of which more will be said presently. Mr.
Swinhoe states that it occurs in China as far south as Canton.
In India it has only been found as a winter-visitant to Boo-
tan, Nepaul, Kumaon and the north-western Himalayas,
though perhaps extending to the plains of the Punjaub. It
lias been obtained at Erzeroom, and Canon Tristram says it is
common and resident in the open country of Palestine. In
Nortli-east Africa Dr. von Heuglin found it to be a winter-
visitant only, and it goes as far south as Kordofan and Abyssinia.
It occurs in Algeria and Eastern Morocco. Returning
to Europe it is common in Spain, hut chiefly in winter,
according to Mr. Saunders, and in France is sufficiently well
known as the Busard Saint Martin. Within the limits thus
traced it occurs very generally.
Whether the Hen-Harrier of America be really identical
with that of the Old World is a point that has been long debated,
but maybe now regarded as satisfactorily settled. The
American bird, Circus hudsonius, can be recognized by its
longer tarsi, and the adult male has the plumage of the lower
parts constantly marked with more or less numerous brownish
spots. Occasionally, but very rarely, the adult male of C.
cyaneus exhibits, as Mr. Stevenson has remarked, slight
dashes of red on the lower parts of the body and under tail-
coverts, in this respect somewhat resembling that of the
species next to be described, hut not to be mistaken for the
American bird.
The whole length of the male is about eighteen inches;
the bill bluish-black; the cere and irides yellow ; the radiating
hairs on the lore, black; the whole of the head, neck,
back, wing-coverts, wings and upper surface of the tail, ash