504 CIRCUS 



white with a creamy white margin along the edge of the wing ; throat warm 

 ash-brown ; rest of the under parts dark brown with a white band marked 

 with brown across the breast. The young birds are dark chocolate-brown, 

 the crown, nape, chin, and upper throat warm orange-buff, but they vary a 

 good deal as regards the amount of buff on the head, and as in other 

 Harriers dark blackish varieties occur, one figured by Dr. Kadde (I.e.} being 

 all dark brown, the upper parts with rufous margins to the feathers, and 

 the tail grey washed with pale brown. 



Hob. Europe ; in Sweden seldom found above 60 N. Lat., 

 and of very rare occurrence in Norway and Finland; Great 

 Britain ; Africa as far south as the Transvaal ; Asia east as far 

 as China and Japan and throughout India and Ceylon ; in 

 winter south to the Philippines. 



Is essentially a marsh-haunting bird, and is generally to be 

 met with in damp swampy places, especially where water-birds 

 breed in numbers. In the northern portions of its range it is 

 a migrant but a resident in the south. As a rule it is a silent 

 bird, but in the breeding season the male may be heard uttering 

 a clear, loud call keew, that of the female being a clear prolonged 

 shrill pee-ep. It feeds on frogs, small snakes, small mammals, 

 young birds, and eggs, and is very destructive to the breeding 

 colonies of water-birds. Being however cowardly and not 

 possessing much power of night it will not attack any but the 

 smaller or weakly birds, and it is doubtful if it dare even attack 

 a rat. Its nest, which is a carelessly constructed bulky structure 

 of sticks, reeds, and flags, is placed on the ground or on the 

 masses of half floating marsh herbage, and its eggs, 4 to 5, 

 .seldom 6 in number, are usually laid in April or May, and are 

 unspotted, greenish or blue-greenish-white in colour, rather 

 roundish in shape, and measure about 1*95 by 1*51. 



716. EASTERN MARSH-HARRIER. 

 CIRCUS SPILONOTUS. 



Circus spilonotus, Kaup. in Jardine's Contrib. Orn. 1850, p. 59 ; Swinhoe, 

 Ibis, 1863, pi. v. ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Br. Mus. i. p. 58 ; David and 

 Oust. Ois. Chine, p. 29 ; Blanf. F. Brit. Ind. Birds, iii. p. 388 ; Tacz. 

 F. 0. Sib. 0. p. 112. 



Khoulda, in Darasun. 



ad. (Siberia). Differs from the very old male of C. a'ruginosus chiefly 

 in lacking nil the rufous tinge on the upper tail-coverts and all the under 

 parts ; crown, nape, forepart of the back, scapulars, and edge of the wing 

 white tinged with buff and streaked with blackish brown : back and 

 inner secondaries blackish brown sparingly spotted or blotched with dull 

 white ; outer primaries blackish ; the rest of the wing silvery grey ; upper 



