124 HEN HARRIER. 
bation. ‘The young are hatched early in June: both parents 
are said to supply them with food. 
The eggs are four or five in number, sometimes, I believe, 
six; and most frequently white, or bluish, or greenish white, 
and in some instances more distinctly spotted, but often 
slightly marked with yellowish brown, or light brown. Bewick 
describes some as of a reddish colour, with a few white spots. 
Male; weight, about twelve or thirteen ounces; length, from 
sixteen to eighteen inches, or eighteen inches and a half; 
bill, black; cere, yellow; iris, yellow; a number of bristles 
almost hide the cere at the base of the bill. ‘The head, which 
is bluish grey, is surrounded by a wreath of short stiff feathers, 
white at the base, and slightly tipped with grey; neck, ash 
grey; nape, the same, but occasionally mottled with brown, 
as are other parts of the plumage while in the changing 
state; chin and throat, fine ight grey. Breast on the upper 
part, grey; on the lower part white, or bluish white. Montagu 
describes one specimen which was streaked with dusky; back, 
fine ight grey. The wings reach to within two inches of the 
end of the tail, and expand to above three feet—the first 
quill is shorter than the sixth: all the feathers very soft. 
Mr. Yarrell quotes in his work an observation which I had 
recorded some years before in my magazine, the ‘Naturalist,’ 
as to the fourth quill feather in the female being the longest, 
and the third in the male. He suggests that in such cases 
the birds may have been killed in autumn before the ultimate 
relative length of the feathers has been gained. The question, 
however, will a puzzling one, why one feather should grow 
faster than another—‘who shall decide?’ A difficulty is certainly 
put in the way of founding specific distinctions on the relative 
length of the quill feathers, as I have already pointed out in 
the case of the Sparrow-Hawk, and shall have occasion again 
to do in that of the Snowy Owl. 
Greater wing coverts, grey; lesser wing coverts, grey, but they 
seem to be the last part of the plumage that loses the 
ferruginous tint of the young bird. The first six primaries 
nearly black, white at the base, and tipped with grey; the 
others grey on the outer webs, white on the inner, and faintly 
barred with dark grey: the first feather is very short, and 
the lightest coloured; the fourth the longest, the third nearly 
as long, the fifth a little longer than the second, the seventh 
about the length of the first; secondaries and tertiaries, grey 
on the outer webs and tips, white on the inner webs; larger 
