Mr. R. B. Sharpe's Catalogue of Accipitres. 227 



duals, of a few rufous or fulvescent spots on the scapulars), 

 becomes gradually mottled by the feathers assuming a grey 

 tint on their upper portion, a darker colour, verging on black, 

 towards their extremity, and, in the case of the lower sca- 

 pulars, a narrow white tip. In this stage the bird bears a 

 curious resemblance to the adult male of Circus spilonotus, 

 from which, however, it is always to be distinguished by its 

 smaller dimensions. In all the immature stages of Circus 

 melanoleucus the tail is greyish brown, crossed with four or 

 five transverse bars of dark brown ; but in very young speci- 

 mens the greyish brown tint is confined to the two central 

 rectrices, the intervals between the transverse bars being in 

 the other tail-feathers white tinged with rufous ; as the bird 

 becomes older the tail loses this rufous tint, all the feathers 

 which compose it become grey ; and this tinge of grey becomes 

 clearer and more decided as the bird advances towards matu- 

 rity. The transverse bars, however, appear to be long in dis- 

 appearing, and I have observed slight traces of them in the 

 case of a specimen which showed no other remains of imma- 

 ture plumage except a very slight tinge or " wash of slaty 

 grey " (to use Mr. Sharpens expression) diffused over the black 

 portions of the plumage. Mr. Sharpe gives this latter pecu- 

 liarity as distinctive of the adult female ; but the specimen 

 above alluded to, in which I observed it, appears by its di- 

 mensions to be a male. The upper tail-coverts, which in the 

 adult males of this species are white broadly barred with an- 

 gular grey markings, are in immature specimens white with 

 (in most cases) a slight brown shaft- mark. The under tail- 

 coverts in the young bird are also white, with broader broAvn 

 shaft-marks. 



There seems to be no instance on record of a specimen of 

 Circus melanoleucus in the fully adult black and grey plu- 

 mage having been ascertained by dissection to be a female ; 

 and the investigations recently made by ornithologists in 

 India on this point tend to prove that if the females of this 

 Harrier ever do acquire a plumage resembling that of the 

 adult male, they only attain it very rarely, and probably when 

 they become aged. Mr. Hume writes to me under date of 



