MARSH HAWK. 113 



This Hawk is particularly serviceable to the rice fields of the 

 southern states, by the havock it makes among the clouds of 

 Rice Buntings, that spread such devastation among that grain, 

 in its early stage. As it sails low and swiftly, over the surface 

 of the field, it keeps the flocks in perpetual fluctuation, and 

 greatly interrupts their depredations. The planters consider 

 one Marsh Hawk to be equal to several negroes, for alarming 

 the Rice-birds. Formerly the Marsh Hawk used to be nume- 

 rous along the Schuylkill and Delaware, during the time the 

 seeds of the Zizania were ripening, and the Reed-birds abun- 

 dant; but they have of late years become less numerous here. 



Pennant considers the " strong, thick, and short legs" of 

 this species as specific distinctions from the Ring-tailed Hawk; 

 the legs, however, are long and slender; and a Marsh Hawk 

 such as he has described, with strong, thick and short legs, is 

 no where to be found in the United States. 



NOTE Montagu, in the " Supplement to the Ornithological 

 Dictionary," an excellent work, positively asserts, that the F. 

 cyaneus, and the F. pygargus, are the same species. This opi- 

 nion the same writer had given in a paper, published in the ninth 

 volume of the Linnean Transactions. If this be the fact, the 

 name of pygargus must be retained for the species, it being that 

 which was given to it by Linnajus, in the tenth edition of the 

 Systema Nature, published in the year 1758. G. Ord. 



VOL. i. R i 



