6 
CIRCUS JERU GIN OS US . 
Fully matured plumage. Head and nape buff-white, deepening into rufescent buff on the hind neck ; the feathers of 
the head with clear, blackish-brown mesial stripes, increasing in width on the hind neck, on the lower part of 
which they spread over the feather into the deep glossy brown of the back, scapulars, median wing-coverts, and 
longer tertials ; in some examples, probably the oldest, the head-streaks are reduced to narrow shaft-lines ; least 
wing-coverts above the flexure and along the ulna, in the female, buff, with dark central streaks overcoming the 
feathers on the lower series ; the median wing-coverts and the scapulars margined with indistinct rufous ; upper 
tail-coverts pale grey, often shaded with tawny patches, and the basal portion of the feathers white ; greater wing- 
coverts, secondaries, primaries (with the exception of the four longer quills), their coverts, and the wdnglet dull 
silver-grey, with dark shafts ; longer primaries black ; basal portion of the inner webs of all the qnills, edge of the 
wing, and under wing-coverts pure white ; tail paler grey than the wings, with a whitish tip and a brownish hue 
near it ; the shafts white. 
Lores and round the eye slaty blackish, with the bases of the feathers white ; ear-coverts brownish, edged with tawny : 
ruff blackish brown, margined broadly with buff ; throat, chest, and breast buff ; the chin with narrow dark shaft- 
hues, and the remainder regularly marked with broad, pointed, sepia-brown streaks, paling on the lower parts 
into dull rufous, and spreading over the feathers, which are often pale-margined, or with buff bases showing here 
and there on the surface ; under surface of tail w'hitish. 
Lu such fully matured birds the lower parts vary much, the feathers in some being as pale-margined as the breast. 
A younger stage, but one in which the bird is adult, and which is more frequently met with than the above, has the 
head and hiud neck rufescent buff, the feathers with broad mesial brown stripes ; the forehead is not so pale as 
the crown, and the ear-coverts are conspicuously brown ; the shorter primaries are dusky, or not so grev as the 
coverts ; the fore neck and chest, and sometimes the better part of the breast, are rufous-buff, with rufous-brown 
stripes, while the whole of the lower parts, including the under tail-coverts, are dark rufous, with dark stripes 
on the breast ; under wing-coverts rufescent. 
! oung. Iris brown ; cere, legs, and feet greenish yellow, the bill sometimes greenish about the base of lower mandible. 
VV hole upper surface, wings, and tail uniform dark browm, while the entire under surface from the throat down is 
chocolate-brown ; the forehead, crown, and chin buff, with narrow brown shaft-stripes ; the tail is tipped with 
buff, and the feathers of the lower parts, in some examples, very finely margined with the same. Occasionally the 
forehead and crown are both brown and the buff confined to the nape, while very rarely the entire bird is a very 
dark brown. 
Progress with age. The brown iris becomes mottled with yellow, and the cere becomes yellowish above, the legs losing 
at the same time their greenish hue. 
The buff of the head spreads down the hind neck, increases on the throat, and a patch of the same appears on the chest : 
in females the lesser wing-coverts become rufescent buff, with dark central streaks ; the under wing-coverts pale 
into rufous, but the quills remain as in the nestling plumage. Examples killed at the end of the season in Ceylon 
are usually in this dress, which is probably acquired by a change in the feather itself. 
At the next moult, the buff continues to spread chiefly on the fore neck, uniting in some cases with the pale space on 
the chest, the lower parts become dark rufous; the primary-coverts, secondaries, and their coverts are pervaded 
with grey ; the upper tail-coverts are rufous, the low'er feathers tipped with ashy, and the tail is brownish ashy. 
Obs. The amount of yellow on the upper surface varies much in all these adolescent stages, some examples having 
the feathers of the low r er back even broadly margined with it ; it varies, in females, on the wing-coverts, and in 
all males I have ever examined is absent from that part. 
Distribution. — This large Harrier (or the Moor-Buzzard, as it is sometimes called in England) arrives in 
Ceylon on its annual migration southwards through India in November, and remains in the island until the 
usual month of departure, the following April. It confines itself chiefly to the sea-coast, and is even there 
somewhat local in its distribution. Although tolerably numerous on the open plains of the Jaffna peninsula 
and about the vast rush-beds at the lower end of the great Jaffna lagoon, as well as on the coasts of both sides 
of the island as far as Manaar and the delta of the Mahawelliganga, it is equally so, during some seasons, in 
the extreme south of the island, and makes its appearance there as early, if not earlier, than in the north. ' 
There can, I think, be no doubt that our seasonal migrants arrive from the north in two separate streams 
rhe one from the north-east driven across the Bay of Bengal from Burmali and the eastward-trending coast to the 
north of the Godavery ; the other making its way down with what is called the “long-shore wind” of October 
and November from the southernmost point of the Carnatic or the region about Cape Comorin, and landing 
