296 
during this time, not one individual will be found in the low 
country. The nest is made very frequently in a heath bush, 
by the edge of some ravine, and is composed of sticks, with a 
very slender lining ; it is sometimes also formed in one of those 
places called Scars, or where there has been a rush on the side 
of a steep hill, after a mountain thunder shower: here little or 
no nest is made, and the eggs are merely laid, on the bare 
ground, which has been scraped hollow. In a flat or level 
country, some common is generally chosen, and the nest is found 
in a whin or other scrubby bush, sometimes a little way from 
the ground. 
Mr. Hewitson adds, that the eggs which are most frequently 
of a spotless, bluish white, are yet often slightly marked with 
yellowish brown, mixed with a purplish hue, and in some speci- 
mens with more distinctly defined spots of light brown. His 
fioure of an egg of this species measures 1:79 x 1:43. The 
average dimensions appear to be about 1°75 by 1:33. 
The Hen Harrier appears to occur throughout Europe, in 
North America,* in North Eastern Africa, Syria, and Turkey in 
Asia, from Smyrna to Babylon, in Afghanistan, throughout the 
more temperate portions of the Russian possessions in Asia, and 
in Northern China.t 
In India the Hen Harrier, is pretty common, in the cold wea- 
ther at any rate, about the outer ranges of the Himalayahs, 
from Abottabad to Kumaon, and possibly further east, and 
stragelers have been obtained in Baraitch (Oudh,) Meerut, 
Bareilly, Gourgaon, Etawah, Saugor, Nagpoor, Chandah and 
Goona, but except in the Himalayahs, or within 20 miles or so of 
their feet, its occurrence appears to be somewhat exceptional. 
The adult male of this species can always be distinguished from 
that of Seainson’, by its perfectly pure, unbarred, and unspotted, 
upper tail coverts, and by its full coloured grey blue throat, 
foreneck, ear coverts, cheeks and _ sides of the neck, all of which 
parts, in Svrainsoni, are pale grey or greyish white. The 
females are more difficult to separate ; as a rule, however, the 
upper tail coverts in these also are pure white, and where this 
is not the case, what markings there are, lanceolate central 
stripes, very different from the broad bar, or cross bar-like spot 
at the ends of the upper tail coverts of both the adult male and 
female of of Swainson. ‘True that in the young Swainson, these 
marks on the upper tail coverts are often obsolete, but then the 
* Some ornithologists contend, however, for the specific distinctness of the 
North American birds. 
tT Mr. Swinhoe gives it, I see, from Amoy and Takoo. 
