142 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



In other parts of the county the ring-tail or 

 female hen-harrier is indiscriminately called a 

 buzzard or a kite, and the various stages of plu- 

 mage observable in the male of this bird and its 

 congeners, in their progress to maturity, appear 

 to have originated as many imaginary species. 

 The fact is, that in the good old times when all 

 these hawks abounded in the land, so little atten- 

 tion had been paid to the study of Natural 

 History, that specific distinctions were exceed- 

 ingly vague and obscure ; a slight resemblance in 

 colour being frequently considered a greater proof 

 of affinity between two individuals than similarity 

 of form and structure : and this error, increased 

 by the ever-varying state of the plumage in imma- 

 ture birds of this family, gave rise to a host of 

 provincial names, which in most cases have sur- 

 vived the ordinary occurrence of the species to 

 which they were originally applied ; and the 

 mysteries of which with oral tradition alone for 

 a guide none but an ornithological QEdipus 

 could ever hope to unravel. 



About two winters ago, I had been shooting 

 during the greater part of a bright, frosty day with 

 a friend on one of the wild beats in the weald, and 

 after a good, old fashioned, fagging day's sport, 

 in which pheasants, woodcocks, hares and rabbits 

 had contributed in fair proportions to our bag, we 



