100 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



Lensth of a male 19 to 21 inches — female 22 to 23. In one 

 21-^, the wing is 16; extent 56; tail 9; tarsus 3^ ; mid-toe and 

 claw nearly 2 ; weight lib. 2oz. In a female 22|- inches, the wing 

 is 17, and tail 9f. 



Irides yellow in the adult ; brown in the j^oung. 



The Marsh Harrier is generally spread through India, frequent- 

 ing banks of rivers, lakes, marshes, and inundated fields, or wet 

 meadow land, occasionally hunting over grass or dry grain fields. 

 It feeds chiefly on frogs, fish, water insects ; also on rats, shrews, 

 and various young or weakly birds. It not unfrequently 

 carries off wounded snipe and even teal, and often follows the 

 sportsman. 



Several other Harriers are found in Africa, some in Australia, 

 and others in America. 



Sub-fam. MiLViN^, — Kites. 



Bill typically small and weak, occasionally stout, rather straight 

 at the base, and suddenly hooked, or curved from the base, and 

 much hooked at the tip, rounded at the sides and compressed 

 only at the tip, the margin sinuated or toothed ; wings long ; 

 tail short and even, or long and forked ; tarsi short, rather thick ; 

 toes short, broad ; claws moderate, not very unequal. 



The kites, as characterized above, contain several well marked 

 forms, of which we have five representatives in India, and there 

 are others in Africa and America. They are birds of rather small or 

 moderate size, and most of them are but little rapacious in their 

 habits, feeding on insects, mice, lizards, and occasionally young 

 or sickly birds, and some on garbage or carrion. As a whole, 

 they differ from the buzzards by their shorter tarsi, and feet, with 

 more equal toes and claws ; and the more typical ones (for I do 

 not consider Milvus and its affmes as typical of the group, though 

 the name of kite is adopted from them) by a peculiar mode of 

 coloration. On the one hand, they may be said to join the eagles 

 or buzzards; and on the other, perhaps, they tend towards the falcons 

 by such birds as Baza lophoies, which has been placed by some 

 systematists among the Falconince. 



