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length, and one inch four lines (1°33) in breadth. The young, 
te to Mr. Jenyns, are hatched about the second week in 
une. 
Mr. Hewitson says that “the nest, which is placed upon the 
ground, is more slight than that of the marsh or Hen Harrier, 
but is composed, like theirs, of flags, sedge, and rushes. The 
eggs are usually four or five in eh but six were found in a 
nest which was forwarded to me; the eggs are of a clear white, 
distinctly tinted with light blue, and are never, to the best of 
my information, spotted. The time of incubation is early in 
May. Mr. Alfred Newton informs me that the Harriers, like 
the Owls, the Eagles, and probably all the Hawk tribe, begin to 
sit upon the first egg, and as there is also most likely an interval 
of some days between the production of each egg, the young are 
Me ee different ages, and much more easily supplied with 
ood.” 
This species is at once distinguished, at all ages, and in both 
sexes, from all our other Indian species of Harriers, by its 
extremely short tarsus and by its short fourth primary. In the 
Hen Harrier, the fourth quill is the longest ; in the other three 
species, the third is the longest; in the pied and pale-chested 
Harrier the fourth quill averages probably 0°25 inches shorter, 
while in the present species it averages nearly 0°75 of an inch 
shorter. As regards the tarsus, Dr. Jerdon gives it at 2.75” in 
the male, and 3” in the female, but in no female even that I 
have yet examined, has it exceeded 2°5 inches, and I am_ pretty 
confident that there must be some mistake in Dr. Jerdon’s 
measurements. 
This species occurs in England; (where at one time it bred 
freely,) in Scandinavia, in fact almost throughout Europe; in 
Algeria, Egypt, South Africa, Babylon, Persia and Afghanistan. 
I do not find it noticed from Northern Asia, nor from China, 
nor does it seem to extend to Malayana or the Archipelago. In 
Ceylon, British Burmah and throughout India, it is found, but 
very locally distributed, always, I think, affecting damp and 
more or less wooded localities, and scarcely ever found, in the 
comparatively dry, though richly cultivated plains, of the N. W. 
Provinces and the Punjaub, and almost, if not entirely unknown 
in Rajpootana, where the pale chested Harrier is not uncommon. 
It is most numerous as far as my experience goes, in damp cul- 
tivated lands, lying at the bases or on the lower slopes of tho 
Himalayahs, (the Dhoon is a great place for it,) or the Niel- 
gherries, and feeds much, to judge from the specimens I have 
killed, on large insects. 
