338 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



fluttering- its wings rapidly, and then suddenly shoots off a long way by a gliding 

 motion, the loud vibratory noise being heard at that moment. It also traverses 

 the air backwards and forwards, quartering the sky as regularly as the Hen- 

 Harrier surveys a piece of ground. The female deposits her eggs on the 

 ground, without making any nest, generally selecting the border of a cultivated 

 field or an open glade in the forest, and during incubation sits so close that she 

 may be almost trodden down. When any person approaches her, the male 

 sallies from the adjacent thicket and stoops at the intruder, passing within a foot 

 or two of his head, then rising again and wheeling round to repeat the same 

 manoeuvre. In the meanwhile, his mate flutters from the nest along the ground 

 as if disabled, and hides herself at a short distance among the grey grass, from 

 which she can hardly be distinguished. The Pisk makes its first appearance at 

 Great Bear Lake generally about the last day of May, and was observed hatching 

 on the Saskatchewan on the 8th of June. According to Wilson, it does not 

 winter even in Georgia. Its eggs are narrower than those of Cap. vociferus, 

 but of the same colours, rather differently distributed : they measure nearly four- 

 teen lines in length. — R. 



DESCRIPTION 



Of a, female, killed on the Saskatchewan, June 10, 1827. 



Colour. — Ground of the upper plumage, wings, tail, sides of the head, and front of the 

 neck, dark liver-brown, with a greenish gloss. The head, neck, and upper rows of lesser 

 wing coverts spotted with yellowish-brown ; the back, scapulars, and tertiaries mottled with 

 brownish-white and a little wood-brown, the pale colour forming speckled bars on the tail 

 and its coverts; mottling on the intermediate wing coverts more copious and of a purer white; 

 the greater coverts present only brown marginal spots. A band on the middle of the quills, 

 commencing on the inner web of the first and ending with the fifth*, and a broad sagittate 

 mark on the throat, pure white. A white-dotted superciliary band reaching to the nape. 

 Under plumage and inner wing coverts marked with regular alternate bars of brownish-white 

 and liver-brown. Bill blackish. Legs pale. — Male specimens in Mr. Svvainson's museum 

 have a white band on all the lateral tail feathers. — R. 



Form. — Bill as in the typical species, but the rictus is completely destitute of bristles. 

 The wings are remarkably long and Swallow-like, the first quill being the longest, the second 

 nearly of equal length, but the others diminishing rapidly. None of the quills are emarginate 

 on either shaft, nor are the margins formed for a noiseless flight, but are entire, like that 

 structure seen in the Swallows. The tail is forked : the feet are represented in the annexed 

 vignette. — Sw. 



* The width and completeness of this band varies in different specimens. 



