27 
BLUE HAWK, OH HEN-HARRIER. 
of the colour of the hack, but a shade lighter ; breast, 
| )e .%, flanks, thighs, under wing-coverts, and under 
tail-coyerts, pure white, without any spot or streak. 
he wings measure nearly fourteen inches, and, when 
dosed, reach only two-thirds the length of the tail, 
"kick is eight and a half inches long, extending by 
Wore than two inches beyond them ; the primaries, ot 
" * l ch the first is shorter than the sixth, the second 
hfth subequal, and the third and fourth longest, are 
* jWkish, paler on the edges, and white at their origin, 
" n eh is more conspicuous on their inferior surface ; the 
secondaries have more of the white, being chiefly bluish 
S' 1 a y 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 
ateral almost purely white ; somewhat grayish on the 
outer vane, and ohsoletelv barred with blackish gray 
on the inner. The feet are bright yellow, and the 
black; the tarsus is three inches long, and 
feathered in front for an inch. 
the female is larger, being between twenty and 
wenty-one inches long, and between forty-four and 
orty-seven in extent; the tarsi, wings, and tail, pro- 
portionally longer, hut strictly corresponding with 
Rise ot the male. The general colour above is cho- 
oo late-brown, more or less varied with yellowish rufous ; 
tbe space round the orbits is whitish, and the auriculars 
are brown ; the small stiff feathers forming the well 
■narked collar, or ruff, are whitish rusty, blackish brown 
aong the shaft; the feathers of the head and neck arc 
11 a '. al {er brown, conspicuously margined with 
. ellowish rusty; outlie nucha, for a large space, the 
Plumage is white at the base, as well as on tbe sides of 
fhe feathers, so that a little of that colour appears even 
"'thont separating them; those of the back and rump 
arc hardly, if at all, skirted with yellowish rusty, but 
he scapulars and wing-coverts have each four regular 
avge round spots of that colour, of which those farthest 
r ° m the base lie generally uncovered ; the upper tail- 
