CIRCUS MELAKOLEUCUS. 
11 
was in a paler phase than any of the others. It follows, however, from what has been made known by various 
writers of late, that, as in other Harriers, the female of this species has no fixed character of adult plumage, but 
that as the bird gradually grows older it inclines towards the melanistic dress of the male, never actually acquiring 
it, and always retaining the striped under surface peculiar to the sex. The length of tarsus will likewise serve to 
distinguish an adult female from an immature brown-plum aged male. 
Young. Iris “light brownish yellow; cere slaty greenish grey” ( Armstrong ). 
Nestling plumage as in young male. 
Distribution . — This handsome Harrier, which, in common with the other three species in our list, is a 
migrant to Ceylon in the cool season, is undoubtedly a rare species in the island. On the few occasions on 
which it has occurred it has been a straggler no doubt, from the numbers which visit, during the N.E. mon- 
soon, parts of the eastern coast of India and Burmah. Layard, with his usual good fortune, while investi- 
gating the ornithology of the island, shot a specimen on the north-west coast near Mantotte, an excellent 
district for Harriers ; he also mentions having seen a drawing of another example made by Mr. Mitford, 
District Judge at Hatnapura, from a bird brought to him by a native, and captured near that place. In the 
early part of 1869, I observed a bird in the black-and-white plumage in the cinnamon-gardens at Colombo, 
and in March 1875 I shot the female above described on the shores of Tamblcgam Bay. It is possible that 
immature birds, in a dress in which they may be mistaken at a distance for other members of the genus, may 
visit the northern shores of Ceylon ; but the old, pied birds can very rarely do so, for during an interval of 
more than eight years’ collecting, always on the look-out for Raptores of all kinds, and two of which were 
passed in the north of the island, I never succeeded in detecting but the' one adult bird above mentioned. 
The Pied Harrier is, during the season of its wanderings, more abundant in Assam and Burmah than 
elsewhere, and radiates outwards from that region down the eastern parts of the Indian peninsula to Ceylon. 
Mr. James Inglis records it in ‘Stray Feathers’ (vol. v. p. 11) as extremely common, from September until 
April, in North-eastern Cacliar. Dr. Jerdon writes that it is found in abundance in districts where rice- 
cultivation is carried on, “ as on the Malabar coast, in parts of the Carnatic, and in Mysore,” hut that it is rare 
in the Deccan and Central India, though common in Bengal. To the east it spreads from its head quarters, 
which are evidently the Mongolian territory to the north ol Burmah, into China and the Amoor Land, from 
which regions Mr. Swinhoe records it. 
Habits . — The Pied Harrier is said to prefer grassy jungles to swampy land. I have seen it both in marshy 
places and low scrubby jungle ; and the district in which Layard obtained his specimen is one of open plains, 
studded here and there with clumps of low husliy growth, or dotted with scattered trees. Jerdon says that, in 
India, it is common in districts which arc cultivated with rice; and it therefore does not appear to confine itsell 
to one particular description of country, hut, like its congeners, to traverse such open tracts as abound in the food 
on which it subsists. Being a bird of slender frame and long wing, its flight is particularly easy and graceful : 
it glides over wide fields impelled by a few slow, though powerful strokes of its ample pinions ; and when hunting 
for its prey it “ quarters ” a tract of ground with the greatest regularity ; starting at one end, it sweeps across 
from side to side, backwards and forwards, with a graceful turn at the end of its course, and while rising and 
falling, so as to skim just above the top of the long grass, it is enabled to drop like a stone on its prey. 
Its diet consists of small reptiles, lizards, and no doubt small birds, or young ones taken from the nest 
when its more favourite food is not procurable. It alights and rests on small eminences on the ground, banks, 
or stones, and roosts, like its congeners, on terra firma, thus falling a prey not unfrequently to nocturnal 
animals. Mr. Oates writes that near Poungday, in Pegu, it is often found on the large plains of mixed jungle 
and paddy-land, and that it prefers inundated paddy-land to any other. 
Nidification . — Where this Harrier breeds is still a matter of conjecture with Indian writers, and conse- 
quently nothing is known of its nidification. The late Mr. Swinhoe could obtain no information concerning 
its nesting in China ; and the inference therefore is, that it retires in the breeding-season to the region between 
the Himalaya and the east ol China. Mr. Hume is of opinion that it breeds in part of this district, namely 
Assam; and Dr. Jerdon remarks that he saw several birds at Purneah in July, at which time they ought to 
have been nesting somewhere. In the female I killed in March the ova were commencing to develop largely, 
and she was evidently about to breed at no great date from that time. 
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