166 HAWKS AND HAWK-LIKE BIRDS. 



well as the neck-frill, ruddy ; under parts buffy-white, 

 with ruddy longitudinal streaks. Summer migrant. 



Eggs. 45, usually plain bluish-white, occasion- 

 ally with some red-brown blotches; 1*7 x 1'3 inch 

 (plate 128). 



Nest. A mere hollow in the ground in moorland, 

 with a lining of dead grass and a border of twigs, 

 placed among gorse or heather ; in the fen country 

 the nest is made of sedges. 



Rather smaller than the Hen-Harrier, Montagu's 

 Harrier is in many ways so similar that it 

 becomes very difficult to distinguish one from the 

 other by any mark visible at even a moderate 

 distance. Montagu's Harrier is a spring visi- 

 tant to the south-eastern parts of England, occa 

 sionally nesting there, but rarely occurring farther 

 north. The Hen-Harrier, on the other hand, is a 

 bird of decidedly northern range. The general colour 

 of Montagu's bird is ashier, that of the Hen-Harrier 

 bluer; but the decisive test -marks in fully grown 

 males are the plain white thighs and unspotted under 

 parts of the Hen-Harrier, and the streaked white 

 thighs and under parts of Montagu's. In shape the 

 smaller bird is somewhat slimmer, and has relatively 

 longer wings, and consequently an airier flight. Both, 

 however, being birds of the open, nesting on the 

 ground preferably in fenny tracts and seeking 

 their diet of small mammals and reptiles, birds and 

 their eggs, by a low buoyant flight, during which they 

 beat over the ground with equal assiduity, chances 

 of confusion are only too numerous. 



