BLUE HAWK, OR HEN-HARRIER. 245 



wings measure nearly fourteen inches, and wlien closed, reach only two- 

 thirds the length of the tail, which is eight and a haif inches long, ex- 

 tending by more than- two inches beyond them ; the primaries, of which 

 the first is shorter than the sixth, the second and fifth subequal, and the 

 third and fourth longest, are blackish, paler on the edges, and white at 

 their origin, which is more conspicuous on their inferior surface ; the 

 secondaries have more of the white, being chiefly bluish gray on the 

 outer web only, and at the point, which is considerably darker. The 

 tail is but very slightly rounded. All the tail-feathers have white shafts, 

 and are pure white beneath ; the middle ones are bluish gray, the lateral 

 almost purely white ; somewhat grayish on the outer vane, and obso- 

 letely barred with blackish gray on the inner. The feet are bright yel- 

 low, and the claws black ; the tarsus is three inches long, and feathered 

 in front for an inch. 



The female is larger, being between twenty and twenty-one inches 

 long, and between forty-four and forty-seven in extent; the tarsi, 

 wings, and tail, proportionally longer, but strictly corresponding with 

 those of the male. The general color above is chocolate-brown, more or 

 less varied with yellowish rufous ; the space round the orbits is whitish, 

 and the auriculars are brown ; the small stiff feathers forming the well 

 marked collar,' or ruff, are whitish rusty, blackish brown along the shaft ; 

 the feathers of the head and neck are of a darker brown, conspicuously 

 margined with yellowish rusty ; on the nucha, for a large space, the 

 plumage is white at the base, as, well as on the sides of the feathers, so 

 that a little of that color appears even without separating them ; those 

 of the back and rump are hardly, if at all, skirted with yellowish rusty, 

 but the scapulars and wing-coverts have each four regular large round 

 spots of that color, of which those farthest from the base lie generally 

 uncovered ; the upper tail-coverts are pure white, often, but not always, 

 with a few rusty spots, constituting the so-called white rump, which is a 

 constant mark of the species in all its states of plumage. The throat, 

 breast, belly, vent, and femorals, pale yellowish rusty, streaked length- 

 wise with large acuminate brown spots darker and larger on the breast, 

 and especially the under wing-coverts, obsolete on the lower parts of the 

 body, which are not spotted. The quills are dark brown, whitish on the 

 inner vane,- and transversely banded with blackish ; the bands are much 

 more conspicuous on the inferior surface, where the ground-color is 

 grayish white. The tail is of a bright yellowish rusty, the two middle 

 tail-feathers dark cinereous ; all are pure white at the origin, and regu- 

 larly crossed with four or five broad blackish bands ; their tips are more 

 whitish, and the inferior surface of a grayish white, like that of the 

 quills, but very slightly tinged with rusty, the blackish bands appearing 

 to great advantage, except on the outer feathers, where they are obso- 

 lete, being less defined even above. 



