BUTEONINA. 45 
Genus, Circus, Lacepede. 
Bill short, weak, high at the base, compressed, sloping, mode- 
rately hooked at tip, a slight festoon in the middle of the margin 
of upper mandible; cere large, covered with setaceous curved 
plumes ; lores covered with small feathers and bristles ; ears large ; 
the coverts and the lower parts of the face partly surrounded by a 
ruff of small thick-set feathers forming an imperfect disc ; wings 
long, third and fourth quills longest; tail long, slightly rounded ; 
tarsi long, slender, well plumed at the knee, smooth, with large 
transverse scute in front; toes rather short, not very unequal ; 
talons sharp, well curved ; hind-toe short. 
Circus macrurus, S. G. Gm. 
51.—Circus swainsoni, A. Smith.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. 
I, p. 96; Butler, Deccan, &c. ; Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 374; 
Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 88; Swinhoe and 
Barnes, Central India ; Ibis, 1885, p. 57 ; Butler, Guzerat ; Stray 
Feathers, Vol. III, p. 447; Hume’s Scrap Book, p. 298. 
THE PALE HARRIER. 
é. Length, 17°6 to 185; expanse, 41 to 4225; wing, 13°5 to 
14; tail, 9 to 10; bill from gape, 1 to 1:2; tarsus, 2°6 to 2°8. . 
?. Length, 18°65 to 20°65 ; expanse, 40 to 47:5; wing, 13°75 
to 15°15 ; tail, 95 to 11°25; bill from gape, 1:2 to 1:38; tarsus, 
2°65 to 2°92. 
Male, above pale grey ; wings and back darker ; beneath greyish- 
white ; rump white, banded with greyish ; tail-feathers, except the 
two centre ones, banded grey and white ; 3rd, 4th and 5th quills 
dusky. 
The female is brown above, the feathers of the head and neck 
edged with rufous ; beneath dark ochraceous with brown streaks 
continued on to the lower tail-coverts ; upper tail-coverts banded 
whitish-brown ; tail with the centre feathers greyish, the outer 
ones pale rufous, ali with dark bands. 
The above is Dr. Jerdon’s description which is very meagre. I 
therefore add Mr. Hume’s description, extracted from Rough 
Notes which is more voluminous :— 
Description.—Legs and feet bright orange to lemon-yellow, 
according to age; claws black; irides bright yellow in adults, 
dark brown in the young; orbits yellow, dingier in the young; 
bill, cere greenish or dusky-greenish in the adult, somewhat yel- 
lower in the young, specially on the culmen, and hidden at sides 
by the bristles of the lore; gape and base of lower mandible 
blue, or sometimes greenish-blue ; upper mandible and tip of 
lower mandible bluish or horn-black. 
Plumage, male.—tLores closcly clothed with tiny white 
feathers, with elongated, naked, black-brown, hair-like shafts ; 
forehead, and streak above eyes, and feathers of orbits greyish- 
white, slightly paler than surrounding parts; the whole of the 
