FALCONIDA. 319 
Sey Wd My 
MONTAGU’S HARRIER. 
CIRCUS CINERACEUS (Montagu). 
This species, first distinguished from the Hen-Harrier by Mon- 
tagu, is smaller and more slender than that bird, with proportionately 
longer wings ; and in any stage of plumage it may infallibly be recog- 
nized by the outer web of its 5th primary having no emargination. 
Montagu’s Harrier was never a resident in the British Islands, as 
erroneously stated by Seebohm ; on the contrary, it is merely a spring 
and summer visitor to Europe (hardly exceptifg the Mediterranean 
basin), and its northerly range is not extensive. To us it comes in 
April, and a pair or two make their nest—often fruitlessly—almost 
every year in East Anglia; while instances are on record of it 
having bred of late years in Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Hants— 
including the Isle of Wight—and other counties of England, as well 
as in Wales; and it even reaches to Yorkshire, beyond which it is 
rare. In the Solway district a female, which had evidently been 
sitting, was shot, according to Mr. R. Service, on June rsth 1882, 
and there have been a few other occurrences ; but the species is un- 
known in Scotland, except in the south, and statements that it has 
bred in Sutherland or visited Caithness are unfounded. In Ireland 
