falconid^;. 65 



it : " On comparison of the specimen of the Marsh Hawk with that of the Ring- 

 tail now before us, the differences are strikingly obvious. The ferruginous colour 

 of the under parts of the Marsh Hawk bring it nearer to some states of the Ash- 

 coloured Falcon of Montagu ; but in this case also the different colour of the male 

 forms an obstacle to their identity *." I subjoin a brief description of that speci- 

 men, taken when it was recently killed. 



DESCRIPTION 



Of a young female, killed at York Factory, August 23, 1821. 



Colour of the bill bluish-black ; cere and tarsi bright-yellow. Plumage of the head 

 and neck brownish-black, with ferruginous edgings, which are broader on the under sur- 

 face of the neck and narrower on the crown. The back, scapularies, and wings, are very 

 dark liver-brown, the lesser coverts being edged with ferruginous. The inner vanes of the 

 quill feathers are broadly barred with buff-orange. The tail coverts are white. The two 

 middle tail feathers are coloured, like the back, with obscure bars; the others are barred 

 alternately with that colour and ferruginous, and they are all tipped with a soiled brownish- 

 white. The whole ventral aspect of the body, the linings of the wings, the under tail coverts, 

 and the thigh feathers, are of an uniform unspotted ferruginous colour. The inner surfaces 

 of the quill feathers are tinged with buff-yellow, and crossed by irregular bars of blackish- 

 brown and lead-grey. 



Form. — Cutting margin of the upper mandible slightly lobed. The fourth quill feather is 

 the longest. The tail is long and rather square. When the gullet is distended, a large naked 

 space appears on each side of the neck, as in the Owls. 



Dimensions. 



Length from the tip of the hill to the end of the tail (before it was skinned) 

 Extent from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other .... 



Length of the tail .......... 



,, tarsus ......... 



Inches. 

 19 



Lines. 

 6 



3C 







11 









From the shortness of the descriptions given by the older writers of their species, 

 and their neglect of attention to structure, it has now become almost impossible to 

 ascertain what were the birds they alluded to ; and we have, therefore, confined 

 ourselves entirely, in our account of the Falconidce, to those of which we have 

 actually seen specimens from the fur-countries. The Prince of Musignano, the 

 latest writer on American ornithology, enumerates seventeen species of this family 

 in his Synopsis of the Birds of the United States, published in 1826 ; to which he 

 has added an eighteenth in his Continuation of Wilson's Ornithology. Of these, 

 eleven are described in this work as natives of the fur-countries, together with 



* When this passage was written, Mr. Sabine was notaware that the mature male of a bluish-grey colour had been 

 seen in America, and therefore concluded that the Marsh Hawk was a species peculiar to that continent. 



