ASH-COLOURED FALCON. 



7 



united to the outer by a short membrane, the inner divided ; the back 

 toe articulated interiorly, and upon the same level with the others. 

 Claws long-, compressed, sharp ; the middle one being denticulated on 

 the inside. Wings of middle size, the first quill a little shorter than 

 the second and third, which are the longest in the wing. 



The genus is divided by Temminck into two sections ; — the genuine 

 Herons and the Bitterns.* 



ARDEIDiE (Vigors.)— * Birds of the Heron and Bittern-kind.* 

 ASH-COLOURED FALCON (Circus cinerarius, Vigors.) 



* Falco cinerarius, Mont. Diet, and Supp. — Trans. Linn. Soc. 9. p. 188. — Circus cine - 

 rarius, Vigors, Zool. Journ. — Busard Montagu, Temm. 1. p. 76. — Die Halb- 

 weihe, Naumann, Vogel, 4. p. 180. T. 21. — Ash-coloured Falcon, Mont. Orn. 

 Diet. & Supp.— Ash-coloured Harrier, Selby, N.ll. and N. P. 28. 



*In a paper published in the Linnsean Transactions, Montagu thus 

 describes a specimen of this bird, killed on the 10th of August, 1803, 

 near Kingsbridge, in Devonshire. It weighed nine ounces and three 

 quarters : length eighteen inches : breadth three feet eight inches 

 and a half : the length from the elbow to the end of the third quill 

 feather (which is the longest) fifteen inches and a half : length of the 

 tail, from the gland on the rump, nine inches and a half. Bill black, 

 the base and cere greenish : irides and orbits bright yellow : crown 

 of the head, cheeks, throat, under part of the neck, back, and sca- 

 pulars cinereous-brown ; the feathers of the last are cinereous at their 

 base, with the tips brown : the smaller coverts are marked the same 

 as the scapulars : the greater coverts are also cinereous-brown, the 

 exposed part of each feather darkest, but not tipped like the others : 

 the eight prime quills are dusky-black, the last with a dash of cine- 

 reous ; the first is very short, the third by far the longest : secondary 

 quills cinereous-brown above, pale beneath, with three remarkable dusky 

 bars, traversely placed, and nearly in parallel lines, each half an inch in 

 breadth ; in some of these feathers when separated from the wing, the 

 rudiment of a fourth bar is observable at the base ; but of these three or 

 four bars only one is visible on the upper side of the wing, the others 

 being hid by the coverts ; this is about two inches from the tips of the 

 feathers ; on the under part of the wing two bars are very conspicuous, 

 the others are paler and hidden by the smaller under coverts, the first 

 row of which is white, with a large dusky bar across the middle ; the 

 rest are bright bay, more or less spotted, barred, or margined with white: 

 the under parts of the body, including the under tail coverts and thighs, 

 white, with a broad streak of bright bay down the shaft of each feather : 

 under scapulars with broad alternate bars of bay and white : the tail is 



