38 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 
remarkable difference in colour between the male and female 
when adult, and a likeness when the former is immature and the 
latter an old bird. Thus, the old male is maimly blue, the 
female brown; so he is called the Blue Hawk often, or Dove 
Hawk, and she the Ringtail. Like those of the Marsh Harrier, 
the eggs of the Hen Harrier are white, and are placed in a nest 
of small sticks and long, coarse grasses, built upon the ground, 
four or five in number, and not often varying from the uniform 
tint of the ground-colour by the addition of a few reddish- 
coloured spots or speckles. Its distinctive English name— 
Hen-Harrier, seems to be due to the fact, that, like the sick and 
repentant old Fox, it appears often to consider “a chicken might 
suit me too,” and acts accordingly. But, from its habits of 
regularly working over stubbles and other haunts of the 
Partridge and other like birds, there is little doubt that it 
varies its diet with a little game occasionally. 
23. ASH-COLOURED HARRIER—(Circus cineraceus). 
This bird, for which Yarrell proposed the name Montagu’s 
Harrier, is by no means of frequent occurrence in this country, 
and is scarcely likely to be met with by many of our young 
readers. The nest, like those of the other two species of Circus 
just named, is usually on the ground, often not far from gorse or 
whin-bushes; and the eggs, four or five in number, are like 
those of its congeners in general colour and appearance. With 
this bird our list of Falconidse closes. 
FAMILY IL.—STRIGIDZA. 
When I was a boy I remember—only those goings-back to 
school were a sad hindrance—trying or helping to make a collec- 
tion, not of Bivds’ eggs exactly, but of Bird’s ‘merry-thoughts’ 
