SPOTTED HARRIER. 
very little spotting, and this bluish colouring pervades the colouring of the 
lower breast. I propose to name this form 
Circus assimilis quirindus, subsp. nov. 
to draw attention to my results. 
North noted as regards Australian birds as a whole : “ Apart from the 
great variation in the young and adult of this species, a great difference may 
be observed also in individual adult specimens. Some have the entire under- 
surface spotted with white, others have the fore-neck pale bluish-slate colour 
like the facial ruff.” He was not interested in the discrimination of subspecies, 
so that I do not know whether the differences noted had any geographical 
significance. 
From the habits above recorded, this species demands osteological 
examination in order that its systematic position be accurately determined. 
It would not surprise me to find that it was a near relative of Spilornis 
masquerading as a Circus. 
The following note given by Mr. Tom Carter refers to the North-western 
form Circus assimilis rogersi : “ The Spotted Harrier is one of the commonest 
birds of prey in the North-west, being most numerous in good seasons. At 
such times one or two of the birds are hardly ever out of sight, but they are 
very wary. With flapping flight they skim over scrub and grassy flats, 
systematically beating the ground for lizards, which seem to be their favourite 
food, but on several occasions I have known them (usually birds in immature 
plumage) attack poultry very determinedly. The breeding-season commences 
about the middle of July, but the building of the nest is sometimes started 
much earlier. I noted a pair of birds commencing a nest in the middle of 
April, 1898, but it was August 17th before it contained three eggs. The birds 
seemed to leave it for a while and then return to it. The nest was a large 
flat structure, built in the main fork of a stunted tree, at a height of eight feet 
above the ground. On August 27th of the same year I took one egg, much 
incubated, from a nest. It was the only egg. The following day^^I found 
two half-grown young in another nest, about forty feet from the ground, in a 
white gum-tree. Between the dates of July 17 and 28, in 1900, 1 found several 
nests containing eggs or young. The largest clutch was four, but three is 
the usual complement. The latest date on which I have noted eggs was 
September 13^ 1900, when a clutch of three fresh eggs was taken. Some- 
times the nest is built on a bush not more than five or six feet from the 
ground, but it is always flat and wide, built of twigs and lined with leaves 
of trees. Lizards of considerable size are often found in the nests when they 
contain eggs. I imagine they are brought for the sitting bird by its mate. 
I have never observed this species in the South-west.” 
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