124 HEN HARKIER. 



bation. The young are hatched early in June: both parents 

 are said to supply them with food. 



The eggs are four or five in number, sometimes, I believe, 

 six; and most frequently white, or bluish, or greenish white, 

 and in some instances more distinctly spotted, but often 

 slightly marked with yellowish brown, or light brown. Bewick 

 describes some as of a reddish colour, with a few white spots. 



Male; weight, about twelve or thirteen ounces; length, from 

 sixteen to eighteen inches, or eighteen inches and a half; 

 bill, black; cere, yellow; iris, yellow; a number of bristles 

 almost hide the cere at the base of the bill. The head, which 

 is bluish grey, is surrounded by a wreath of short stiff feathers, 

 white at the base, and slightly tipped with grey; neck, ash 

 grey; nape, the same, but occasionally mottled with brown, 

 as are other parts of the plumage while in the changing 

 state; chin and throat, fine light grey. Breast on the upper 

 part, grey; on the lower part white, or bluish white. Montagu 

 describes one specimen which was streaked with dusky; back, 

 fine light grey. The wings reach to within two inches of the 

 end of the tail, and expand to above three feet the first 

 quill is shorter than the sixth: all the feathers very soft. 

 Mr. Yarrell quotes in his work an observation which I had 

 recorded some years before in my magazine, the 'Naturalist,' 

 as to the fourth quill feather in the female being the longest, 

 and the third in the male. He suggests that in such cases 

 the birds may have been killed in autumn before the ultimate 

 relative length of the feathers has been gained. The question, 

 however, will a puzzling one, why one feather should grow 

 faster than another 'who shall decide?' A difficulty is certainly 

 put in the way of founding specific distinctions on the relative 

 length of the quill feathers, as I have already pointed out in 

 the case of the Sparrow-Hawk, and shall have occasion again 

 to do in that of the Snowy Owl. 



Greater wing coverts, grey ; lesser wing coverts, grey, but they 

 seem to be the last part of the plumage that loses the 

 ferruginous tint of the young bird. The first six primaries 

 nearly black, white at the base, and tipped with grey; the 

 others grey on the outer webs, white on the inner, and faintly 

 barred with dark grey: the first feather is very short, and 

 the lightest coloured; the fourth the longest, the third nearly 

 as long, the fifth a little longer than the second, the seventh 

 about the length of the first; secondaries and tertiaries, grey 

 on the outer webs and tips, white on the inner webs; larger 



