HEN HARRIER. 97 



the plumage in the birds of the two countries, and none 

 whatever in the habits. If this point of the identity of 

 these two birds be admitted, the Hen Harrier may then be 

 said to inhabit the whole of North America, in addition to 

 the other localities already enumerated ; and I may add, that 

 several species of true Harriers are now known to exist on 

 each of the large continents of the Old and New World. 



The male and female, it has already been stated, are when 

 adult so very different in colour as to have led formerly 

 to the belief that they were distinct species ; and we are 

 indebted to Colonel Montagu for a series of observations 

 detailed in the ninth volume of the Transactions of the 

 Linnean Society, and afterwards in the Supplement to his 

 Ornithological Dictionary, which, corroborated by the more 

 recent observations of others, have clearly determined that 

 the Hen Harrier and Ringtail are but the adult male and 

 female of the same species. 



The whole length of the male is about eighteen inches ; 

 the bill black, or bluish black ; the cere and irides yellow ; 

 the black hairs on the lore, or space between the base of the 

 beak and the eye, radiate from a centre, those in a direction 

 upward and forward meet and become mixed with those of 

 the opposite side over the ridge of the cere, hiding the nos- 

 trils ; the whole of the head, neck, back, wing-coverts, 

 wings, and upper surface of the tail-feathers, ash grey ; 

 with the exception in my own specimen of a mottled brown 

 spot on the nape of the neck, the last remaining portion 

 of its former brown plumage ; the wing-primaries nearly 

 black, the first the shortest and the lightest in colour, the 

 longest not reaching to the end of the tail ; the chin and 

 throat ash grey, like the other parts of the neck ; the breast 

 and belly lighter in colour, becoming bluish white ; thighs 

 and under tail-coverts white ; under surface of the tail- 

 feathers pale greyish white, with traces of five darker bars ; 

 the legs and toes slender and yellow ; the claws black. 



VOL. I, H 



