98 THE HARRIERS 



MONTAGU'S HARRIER, [Circus pygdrgus (Linnaeus). Circus cinerd- 

 ceus (Montagu). Ash-coloured harrier. French, busard cendre; German, 

 Wiesenweihe ; Italian, albanella minore]. 



1. Description. Montagu's harrier may always be distinguished from 

 the hen-harrier by the fact that the emargination of the outer primaries is confined 

 to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th ; further, the emargination of the 2nd arises well above 

 the major covert, and the 5th primary is conspicuously shorter than the 2nd. 

 The sexes differ conspicuously in size. In the male the upper parts are of a 

 slate-grey, with a black bar across the secondaries ; while the tail is crossed by 

 five dark brown bars except the middle pair. Fore-neck and breast ash-grey, 

 abdomen white with rufous striations. Examples of a sooty black occasionally 

 taken. Cere, legs and iris yellow. Length 18 in. [457*0 mm.]. In the female 

 the upper parts are dark brown, with a few blotches of rust-red on scapulars and 

 lesser wing-coverts. Facial disc dark brown. Under parts pale yellowish rust- 

 colour striated with rufous in the flanks. Length 19J in. [495'0 mm.]. The 

 juvenile dress is of a dark brown " laced " with rust-colour in the wing-coverts, 

 while the under parts are of a rust-red, darker than in the female, and faintly 

 striated. Young in down white. Montagu's harrier, like others of the genus, is 

 subject to melanism, and old birds are sometimes found nearly black ; while 

 young birds have also a melanistic phase, and this is often so with British 

 specimens, [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. To the British Isles this species is a summer visitor in 

 small numbers, and almost annually attempts to breed in the southern counties 

 of England, from Cornwall east to Sussex and Surrey, and occasionally in Norfolk, 

 Suffolk, Cambridge, Yorks, Merioneth (1901) and possibly also in Northumberland 

 and Notts. It is only a rare straggler to Scotland and Ireland, but has once occurred 

 in the Solway district in summer, and has several times been obtained in co. Wicklow 

 in Ireland. On the Continent it is thinly distributed, but does not range so far 

 north as the Hen Harrier, and is absent from Russia north of the mouth of the 

 Mologa and the Gulf of Finland, and is a rare straggler north of the Baltic, except 

 perhaps in South Sweden. Southward its breeding range extends to the Mediter- 

 ranean and North-west Africa, where it is locally common. Its distribution in Asia 

 is very imperfectly known, but it is known to breed in Turkestan and South- 

 west Siberia. During the winter months its migrations extend to the Canaries 



