380 FALCONIDJE. 



and the posterior lores black ; primaries grey above, blackish 

 beneath. In many specimens the fore-neck and flanks, and some- 

 times more of the lower parts, are pearly grey. 



Young birds are brownish ashy above, with pale edges to the 

 feathers ; the quills and tail-feathers are tipped white ; breast 

 tinged or streaked with fulvous. 



Bill black ; cere and gape pale yellow ; irides crimson in adults, 

 yellow in the young ; legs and feet deep yellow ; claws black. 



Length about 13 ; tail 5 ; wing 10-5 ; tarsus 1-3 ; mid-toe 

 without claw 1 ; bill from gape 1*1. 



Distribution. Throughout Africa, locally in Southern Europe 

 and in South-western Asia, and in India, Ceylon, and Burma, but 

 not, so far as is known, farther east, nor in Southern Tenasserim. 

 Hume obtained specimens at the Laccadive Islands. In India, 

 from the base of the Himalayas to the extreme South, in Ceylon, 

 and in Arrakan and Pegu, this Kite is pretty generally distributed, 

 but is not often abundant. 



Habits, <$[c. Locally this is a migratory bird, wandering from one 

 place to another with the seasons. It occurs most commonly in 

 well-wooded cultivated districts and in thin jungle, avoiding both 

 open plains and dense forests. It lives chiefly on insects and 

 small mammals, and either watches for its prey from a perch or 

 beats over grass or bushes, sometimes hovering like a Kestrel. It 

 varies much in its time of breeding, eggs having been taken, at one 

 place or another, at all seasons, and it appears sometimes to breed 

 twice in the year. The nest, a loose structure of twigs, as a rule 

 unlined, sometimes lined with grass, is placed on a tree, and 

 contains 3 or 4 eggs, usually densely blotched with brownish red 

 and measuring about 1*53 by 1*21. 



Genus CIRCUS, Lacepede, 1801. 



General form slender. Bill moderate or weak, compressed, the 

 culmen curving from the margin of the cere to the hooked tip ; the 

 margin of the upper mandible slightly festooned ; nostril large, 

 oval, in the anterior part of the cere, overhung and partly con- 

 cealed by the bristles of the lores. A ruff of small, soft, closely- 

 set feathers, much more conspicuous in some species than in others, 

 extends across the throat and up each side of the neck behind the 

 ear-coverts. Wings long and pointed ; tail long, even at the tip or 

 rounded. Tarsi long and slender, feathered at the base only, with 

 transverse shields in front and smaller polygonal scales behind ; 

 toes moderate ; claws much curved and sharp. 



The Harriers are a well-defined group of Hawks, easily recog- 

 nized by their flight and appearance. All Indian species are 

 migratory, and, with rare exceptions, cold-weather visitants, though 

 one kind doubtless breeds in Northern India, and another may do 

 so occasionally. They make nests on the ground or amongst reeds 

 in marshes, and lay bluish-white eggs, generally unspotted, but 

 -occasionally with a few brownish-red spots. 



