6 



only met with it once at Am Djendeli ; but Mr. Tyrwhitt-Drake found it abundant in Morocco, 

 where, M. Favier writes, " it is the commonest of the Harriers, and is both resident and 

 migratory in the vicinity of Tangier. Those which migrate pass to Europe in February and 

 March, returning in September and October. They commence to breed late in March." Ledru 

 says that it occurs in the Canaries ; but subsequent investigation does not confirm this state- 

 ment. It certainly is seen, though very rarely, as far south on the continent of Africa as the 

 Transvaal ; for Mr. Ayres (Ibis, 1871, p. 147) shot a young male in the vicinity of Potchefstroom 

 in December 1869, and sent it to Mr. Gurney, who confirmed his identification of it. 



In Asia it is found as far east as Japan. Major St. John states that it is common in marshy 

 places in Persia ; and I have seen examples from Erzeroom. According to Dr. Jerdon (B. of 

 India, i. p. 100) it is " generally spread throughout India, frequenting 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." Mr. A. O. Hume writes (Stray Feathers, i. p. 160), it is "very common 

 both along the great rivers of the Punjab and Sindh, and about all the inland waters of the 

 latter province. In Southern Sindh, and generally in the arid tracts that compose so large a 

 portion of the area of the province, we never saw it ;" and in his article on the Ornithology of 

 the Islands of the Bay of Bengal, he adds as follows : — " Davison saw a pair of young birds of 

 this species hawking over the paddy fiats at Aberdeen during the first week in May, but failed to 

 get a shot. It is apparently rare even in the neighbourhood of Port Blair ; and we none of us 

 ever saw it elsewhere during our peregrinations." Mr. Holdsworth says that it is only an occa- 

 sional visitant to Ceylon. He observed a pair near Aripo in January 1870, and shot the female. 

 Mr. Vincent Legge also writes (Ibis, 1874, p. 10) that it "arrives in the south of Ceylon in the 

 middle of October, and is very numerous close to the town of Galle. During the north-east 

 monsoon-rains in December these birds feed much on fish in the flooded flat lands of the south." 



Neither Von Middendorff nor Von Schrenck record it from Siberia, though Pallas says that 

 it is common ; but Dr. Radde says this statement can only refer to Western Siberia, as he merely 

 saw it occasionally on passage in the autumn at Tarei-nor, and adds that it is very rare. He saw 

 it at Kulussutajeffsk on the 28th August, O.S., and picked up a young male dead on the 5th 

 (17th) September. It is very possible that Dr. Radde may have been in error as regards his 

 specimens being our Marsh-Harrier; for Mr. Taczanowski states (J. f. O. 1874, p. 316) that it 

 does not occur in Eastern Siberia, and that the two young birds sent from Darasun belong 

 doubtless to Circus spilonotus. It certainly occurs in China; for Mr. Swinhoe obtained it at 

 Swatow, Amoy, S.W. Formosa, and Hainan ; and Pere David says that it is found in but small 

 numbers in China, and is rarer in the south than in the northern portion of the empire. He 

 only once met with it in Mongolia. There is, according to Professor Schlegel, an adult female 

 in the Leyden Museum obtained by Siebold in Japan ; and Captain Blakiston says (Ibis, 1863, 

 p. 98) that a specimen he obtained in that country was determined by Mr. Gurney as an adult 

 female; but Messrs. Blakiston and Pryer, in their article on the Birds of Japan (Ibis, 1878, 

 pp. 209-250), only include Circus spilonotus, and not the Marsh-Harrier. 



In habits the present species, as its name infers, is much more of a marsh species than the 



