56 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



in length, and were an inch across where widest. The natives informed us that these 

 birds build indifferently on the ground or in low bushes. They reach the fur- 

 countries in the latter end of April, and depart about the end of September. They 

 are common in the United States, and are said by the Prince of Musignano to be 

 found in all the varieties of plumage in Florida, but that in the northern States 

 the young only are known. We saw only mature birds on the plains of the Sas- 

 katchewan, and none but the young (or what are considered as such) on the shores 

 of Great Bear Lake. It is possible, that the old and the immature birds may 

 keep apart in winter as well as summer, and migrate, on the change of seasons, 

 through the same number of degrees of latitude. I could not ascertain whether 

 the species breeds so far north as Bear Lake. 



The identity of the American Hen-Harrier with the European one has not been 

 satisfactorily proved. The very dissimilar plumage of the males and females, and 

 the changes they undergo from age, render the investigation difficult. The sexes 

 of the European bird were long considered to be distinct species, the male being 

 termed F. cyaneus, or Hen-Harrier, and the female F. pygargus, or Ring-tail. 

 This mistake was rectified by Montagu, in a paper published in the Linnaean 

 Transactions ; and he at the same time established another species (F. cineraceus), 

 which had been previously confounded with the F. cyaneus. The young birds, 

 being more easily procured, were until lately the only American specimens sub- 

 mitted to naturalists, and were considered to be a peculiar species to which the 

 name of Marsh Hawk * (F. uliginosus) was applied. The matter is not yet cleared 

 of doubt ; and it is possible, even admitting the identity of the F. uliginosus and 

 F. cyaneus, that the F. cineraceus, or another species, may exist in North America, 

 individuals of which, being confounded with the Marsh Hawk, may have been the 

 origin of various discrepancies in the descriptions given by authors. 



Eight specimens were brought home by the last Expedition. Five of these 

 (three males and two females) were killed in the fifty-third parallel of latitude 

 early in the breeding-season, and are undoubtedly all of one species ; that fact 

 being clearly ascertained by one of the pairs having been killed at their nest, 

 which contained three eggs. They correspond with the sexes of the F. cyaneus 

 of Europe in mature plumage, though they are not, perhaps, very old birds. 

 The other three specimens were procured at Great Bear Lake, in latitude 



* The Marsh Hawk (Accipiter paludarius) of Edwards, pi. 291, is engraved and described from a drawing made 

 by Mr. William Bartram. It has stout reticulated tarsi, and is otherwise so dissimilar to our bird, that it cannot be 

 quoted as a synonyme. Pennant and Latham take their descriptions from Edwards. Wilson describes the young of 

 our bird under the name of Marsh Hawk, but intimates that he has little doubt of its being the same with the Euro- 

 pean Hen-Harrier. The Prince of Musignano considers them to be identical. 



