AND IN PARTS OF WYNAAD AND SOUTHERN MYSORE. . 339. 
the bare grassy hills and swamps. It avoids thickly-wooded 
ground. It'feeds chiefly on reptiles and field mice, but also on 
birds. I saw one carry off a Myna (Acridotheres mahrattensis) 
from out of a flock of about thirty that were feeding on the’ 
ground. I followed the Harrier up and shot it; the Myna was’ 
quite dead, but in excellent condition, but it was blind of one’ 
eye. IL have also found the remains of young Quail (JZ° 
erythrorhynchus) in the stomach of one shot near Coonoor. 
The following are the dimensions, &c., of three nearly adult 
females:—Length, 20°0 to 20:5; expanse, 44° to 46°5 ; tail, 9°3. 
to 10°6 ; wing, 14:0 to 14°7; tarsus, 2°8 to 3:0; bill from gape, 
1:3 to 1:35; weight, 15 to 16 ozs. 
Irides bright yellow; legs and feet chrome yellow; cere 
greenish ; claws black ; bill plumbeous, shading to black at tip. 
Jerdon, in his description of the female of this species, says: 
“ Beneath dark ochraceous, with brown streaks continued on 
the lower tail-coverts, &c.”” Now the lower surface is not always 
dark ochraceous ; in two out of my three females, which are all 
very nearly adult, the lower surface is white, broadly streaked 
with brown in one, narrowly in the other. In the third speci- 
men the lower surface is a pale ochraceous buff similarly 
streaked. 
In the young male, which is not described by Jerdon, the 
lower surface is what I should call a warm ochraceous buff, 
this colour extending in a narrow somewhat interrupted band 
completely round the neck ; a supercilium, a streak below the 
eye, and a fringing to all the wing-coverts, and some of the 
tertiaries, are of this same colour; the outermost three tail 
feathers on each side on their upper surfaces are ochraceous, 
broadly transversely banded with dull black; the other tail 
feathers arehair brown, witha silvery grev shade towards their 
bases, indistinctly transversely banded with black, and witha 
broad subterminal black band which is very narrowly fringed 
with ochraceous. The rest of the upper surface is a warm hair 
brown, darkest on the head. 
53.—Circus melanoleucus, Penn, The Pied Harrier. 
The Pied Harrier occurs but sparingly on the Nilghiris, their 
slopes, and in the Wynaad. The young are I think more often 
seen than adults. In habits and food this species does not 
differ from the preceding, and like it, it is of course only a cold 
weather visitant. A young male,shot near Manantoddy, in the 
Wynaad, was in the transition stage to the adult plumage, show- 
ing a mottling of black feathers on the head, neck, mantle, 
sides of face, and throat. 
