58 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



Genus CIRCUS, LacSpede. 



Two, if not three, Harriers inhabit AustraUa ; consequently 

 the number of species is nearly equal in Europe, Asia, Africa, 

 America, and Australia. Those inhabiting the latter country 

 are precisely of the same form, and perform the same offices 

 as their near allies do in the other parts of the world. 



Sp. 26. CIRCUS ASSIMILIS, Jardine and Selbij. 



Allied Harrier. 



Circus assimilis, Jard. & Selb. 111. Orn., vol. ii. pi. 51. 



Gouldi, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av., torn. i. p. 34 (young ?), 



Swamp Hawk of the Colonists. 



Circus assimilis, Gould, Birds of Australia, fol., vol. i. pi. 26. 



The Circus assmilis may be regarded as the commonest of 

 the Harriers inhabiting New South Wales and South Australia ; 

 it also occurs, but in smaller numbers, in Tasmania. A 

 Harrier is also rather abundantly dispersed over all the 

 localities suitable to its existence in Western Australia, and it 

 is just possible that it may prove to be the same species ; if 

 such should be the case, the whole of the southern portion of 

 that vast country, from east to west, must be included within 

 the range of its habitat. In size the Circus assimilis is but 

 little inferior to the Marsh Harrier {C. csruginosus) of 

 Em'ope, to which it ofiFers a great resemblance in its habits 

 and economy — being generally seen flying slowly and some- 

 what heavily near the surface of the ground, evincing a 

 partiality to lagoons and marshy places, situations which offer 

 it an abundance of food consisting of reptiles, small mammalia, 

 and birds. I believe this bird also inhabits New Zealand, 

 and that it is the C. Goiddi of Bonaparte. 



That the Allied Harrier breeds in the localities in which I 

 observed it I have little doubt, from the circumstance of the 



