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CIRCUS .ERUGINOSUS. 



- THE MOOR HARRIER. 



The adult umber-brown, tinged with grey on the 

 \ipper parts, deep reddish-brown on the lower; the 

 head, upper parts of the neck, and the shoulders, to a 

 greater or lesser extent, yellowish-white. The young 

 birds deep chocolate-brown, the wing-coverts brownish- 

 red at the end, the quills and tail-feathers terminated 

 with reddish-white. After the second moult, more or 

 less yellowish- white on the head and neck according to 

 age. 



Male.— The Moor Harrier is of a rather slender 

 form, and in its general appearance resembles the ring- 

 tailed ; but it differs from that species and Montagu's 

 harrier in having the bill and feet proportionally stronger. 

 It might be considered as a buzzard with nearly as 

 much propriety as a harrier, and is one of those species 

 which shew how arbitrary limitations of genera fre- 

 quently are. The body is elongated ovate, very nar- 

 row behind ; the neck short, the head oblong and of 

 moderate size. The bill is shorter than the head, 

 deeper than broad at the base, compressed ; the upper 

 mandible has its dorsal line nearly straight, and sloping 

 to the end of the cere, beyond which it is curved in the 

 fourth of a circle ; the ridge broad and rather flat to the 

 end of the cere, then broadly convex, the sides sloping, 

 at the base slightly concave, towards the end slightly 



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