(i CIRCUS .ERUGINONIS. 



Fully matured plumage. Head and nape buff-white, deepening into rufescent buff on the bind neck ; the feathers of 

 the head with clear, blackish-brown mesial stripes, increasing in width on the hind neck, on the lower part of 

 which they spread over the feather into the deep glossy brown of the back, scapulars, median wing-coverts, and 

 longer tertials ; in some examples, probably the oldest, the head-streaks are reduced to narrow shaft-lines ; li 

 wing-coverts above the flexure and along the ulna, in the female, buff, with dark- central streaks overcoming the 

 feathers on the lower series; the median wing-coverts and the scapulars margined with indistinct rufous; upper 

 tail-coverts pale grey, often shaded with tawny patches, and the basal portion of the feathers w hite ; greater wing- 

 coverts, secondaries, primaries (with the exception of the four longer quills), their coverts, and the winglet dull 

 silver-grey, with dark shafts ; longer primaries black ; basal portion of the inner webs of all the quills, edge of the 

 wing, and under wing-coverts pure white ; tail paler grey than the wings, with a whitish tip and a brownish hue 

 near if ; the shafts white. 

 Lores and round the eye slaty blackish, with the bases of the feathers white; ear-coverts brownish, edged with tawny : 

 ruff blackish brown, margined broadly with buff; throat, chest, and breast buff; the chin with narrow dark shaft- 

 lines, and the remainder regularly marked with broad, pointed, sepia-brown streaks, paling on the lower parts 

 into dull rufous, and spreading over the feathers, which are often pale-margined, or with buff bases showing here 

 and there on the surface; under surface of tail whitish. 

 In such fully matured birds the lower parts vary much, the feathers in some being as pale-margined as the breast. 

 A younger stage, but one in which the bird is adult, and which is more frequently met witli than the above, has the 

 head and hind neck rufescent buff, the feathers with broad mesial brown stripes ; the forehead is not so pale as 

 the crown, and the ear-coverts are conspicuously brown ; the shorter primaries are dusky, or not so grey as the 

 coverts; the fore neck and chest, and sometimes the better part of the breast, are rufous-buff, with rufous-brown 

 stripes, while the whole of the lower parts, including the under tail-coverts, are dark rufous, with dark stripes 

 on the breast ; under wing-coverts rufescent. 



Young. Iris brown ; cere, legs, and feet greenish yellow, the bill sometimes greenish about the base of lower mandible. 



Whole upper surface, wings, and tail uniform dark brown, while the entire under surface from the throat down is 

 chocolate- brown ; the forehead, crown, and chin buff, with narrow brown shaft-stripes; the tail is tipped with 

 buff, and the feathers of the lower parts, in some examples, very finely margined with the same. Occasionally the 

 forehead and crown are both brown and the buff coulined to the nape, while very rarely the entire bird is a very 

 dark brown. 



Progress with age. The brown iris becomes mottled with yellow, and the cere becomes yellowish above, the legs losing 

 at the same time their greenish hue. 



The buff of the head spreads down the hind neck, increases on the throat, and a patch of the same appears on the chest : 

 in females the lesser wing-coverts become rufescent buff, with dark central streaks ; the under wing-coverts pale 

 into rufous, but the quills remain as in the nestling plumage. Examples killed at the end of the season in Ceylon 

 are usually in this dress, which is probably acquired by a change in the feather itself. 



At the next moult, the buff continues to spread chiefly on the fore neck, uniting in some cases with the pale space on 

 the chest ; the lower parts become dark rufous ; the primary-coverts, secondaries, and their coverts are pervaded 

 with grey; the upper tail-coverts are rufous, the lower feathers tipped with ashy, and the tail is brownish ashy. 



Obs. The amount of yellow on the upper surface varies much in all these adolescent stages, some examples having 

 the feathers of the lower back even broadly margined with it : it varies, in females, on the wing-coverts, and in 

 all males 1 have ever examined is absent from that part. 



Distribution. — This large Harrier (or the Moor-Buzzard, as it is sometimes called in England) arrives in 

 Ceylon on its annual migration southwards through India in November, and remains in the island until the 

 usual month of departure, the following April. It confines itself chiefly to the sea-coast, and is even there 

 somewhat local in its distribution. Although tolerably numerous on the open plains of the Jaffna peninsula 

 aud about the vast rush-beds at the lower end of the great Jaffna lagoon, as well as on the coasts of both sides 

 of the island as far as Manaar and the delta of the Mahawelliganga, it is equally so, during some seasons, in 

 the extreme south of the island, and makes its appearance there as early, if not earlier, than in the north. 



There can, I think, be no doubt that our seasonal migrants arrive from the north in two separate streams — 

 t he one from the north-east driven across the Bay of Bengal from Burmah and the eastward-trending coast to the 

 north of the Godavery ; the other making its way down with what is called the " long-shore wind " of October 

 and November from the southernmost point of the Carnatic or the region about Cape Comorin, and landing 



