THE UEN HARRIER.* 



So greatly do the sexes in this species diifer, both m size and pkimage, that they have 

 often been desciibed as diflerent birds, and astonishment has been expressed that the 

 female and nest of the gray one, which is the male, could never be found. Even in the 

 same sex, the colours are not a little perplexuig ; for in all bu-ds, where there are 

 remarkable differences of plumage in the sexes, and a passage from the plumage of one 

 to the other, as there generally is, there are not only always individuals in some of the 

 intermediate stages of the plumages, but there are others in which the change never 

 completely takes place, and some in which the plumage of the other sex is partially 

 assumed. Colom-s vary also with differences of age, situation, and season ; so that differ- 

 ence of colour is never a suiEcient foundation for difference of species. Far more depen- 

 dence should be placed on a similai-ity of situation and habits. 



" There is a diversity of opinion," says Mr. Lloyd, " as to whether the hawk commonly 

 called the ringtail is the female of the hen harrier. I have, however, no doubt at all on 

 the subject. The ringtail is nothing more than the female or young bii-d. The male 

 does not put on his blue and white plumage till he is a year old. I have frequently 

 found the nest of both on the mountain, where they build in a patch of rough heather, 

 generally by the side of a burn, and also in a furze-bush." 



The full-grown female harrier is about twenty inches long, and three feet and a half 

 in the extent of its wings. The naked parts are yellow. The irides are dark brown. 

 The prevailing colours of the bird are brown and dusky white. The head is mottled 

 brown on the upper part. The concha round the eyes is brown, immediately surround- 

 ing that organ, but terminates on a white eyebrow, which reaches to the cere of the beak, 

 and it is white below, but terminates in a brown border. This appendage gives an 

 expression to the eye, perfectly distinct from that of any other tribe. The feathers 

 below are brown, with pale margins, and pass into white at the tail coverts ; the upper 

 part is brown, lightest ui the scapulars and lesser coverts, and the margins of the feathers 

 are lighter. The tail is brown, with dusky bars, and the quills of the wing very deep 

 brown, inchning to black. 



The breast, head, and all the upper part of the male are of a fine gray, lighter on 

 those parts of the concha which are white in the female, and also where the brown is 

 lighter on the upper part of that bird. The remainder of the under part is white, with 

 very faint markings ; indeed all the markings on the male bird are obscure and faint ; 

 but, notwithstandmg that, and the difference of size and expression of the eyes, — the 

 irides being yellow in the male and brown in the female, — the shape and the air of the 

 birds correspond exactly. 



The hen harrier exists in each of the great divisions of the globe. Dr. Richardson 

 observes, that " it is a common species on the plains of the Saskatchewan, seldom less 



* Falco Cyancu!:. 



