510 
measures differently to what I do; any how, out of nine Indian 
specimens, whose tarsi I have recorded, (measuring most accu- 
rately with compasses and a decimal rule,) in no single case did 
I find the tarsus less than I have mentioned, and it certainly 
averages, in adults, fully 3°06; similarly measured, 2°8 may be 
taken as a maximum for Swainsoni and Cyaneus, and 2°4 for 
Cineraceus. 
There is one possible flaw: I have never killed this species 
myself, and am dependant, for the identification of the sex, and 
many of the measurements (not of course of the tarsus, or other 
parts, that do not alter in the dried skin,) on Col. Tytler, Mr. 
Irwin and others, but taking the whole of the evidence col- 
lectively, I entertain no doubt that all the specimens that I 
have examined, all but one (of which the sex was not ascertain- 
ed) professing to be males, and agreeing closely in all their mea- 
surements, were really males. 
It still is open to any one to suggest, that as Dr. Jerdon’s 
bird is by him believed to belong to a separate species, Spi/lo- 
notus (of which more anon,) these young birds that I have 
described, may belong to this, and not to Melanoleucus. But 
two at least of these young birds were shot in company with 
with full-plumaged Me/anoleucus, and they are one and all 
somewhat smaller in their dimensions, than undoubted adult 
Pied Harriers, whereas the supposed Spi/onotus is said by 
Mr. Gurney, to be a decidedly Jarger bird, with longer tarsi. 
I believe we may rest assured that the birds described by me, 
are bond fide young males of this species, and it seems not im- 
probable that these may be the birds referred to by Mr. Gurney 
in the following notice which appeared in the Ibis for 1868. 
“ A third undescribed Harrier, of the Philippine Island, is of 
the same size and configuration as the last mentioned, but of 
very similar colouring to the adult male of C. hudsonius (Linn.) 
which Professor Schlegel (Museum des Pays Bas, Circi, p. 3) 
mentions as a species inhabiting the Philippine Islands, but 
which I have never seen thence. It is, however, decidedly a 
smaller species than C. hudsonius, and may perhaps prove to 
be a hitherto undescribed state of C. Melanoleucus, a possibility 
which has hitherto restrained me from describing it as a dis- 
tinct species.” As regards the females, I have no positive in- 
formation, but, I feel certain myself, that Dr. Jerdon’s specimen 
was Circus Melanoleucus, in plumage intermediate between those 
stages which I have described, and I cannot doubt, that it 
exactly corresponded with the figure of the supposed Spi/onotus 
in the Ibis for 1863. 
