130 
allen’s naturalist’s library. 
blackish; feet yellow; iris yellow. Total length, 1 8 inches ; 
culmen, I'l ; wing, i3'5-i5-o ; tail, 9-8; tarsus, 2-3. 
Adult Female. — Different from the male. Nearly uniform 
brown above, with slight remains of rufous margins to the 
feathers ; head and hind-neck streaked with pale rufous, as well 
as the sides of the neck and the facial ruff ; ear-coverts nearly 
uniform brown, the feathers under the eye whitish ; quills dark 
brown, the primary-coverts and primaries shaded with grey ex- 
ternally, and barred with darker brown, more distinctly under- 
neath, where the quills are huffy white on the inner web, the 
inner secondaries being brown like the back; upper tail-coverts 
white ; tail brown, tipped with paler brown and crossed with 
five bands of darker brown, the interspaces paler and more 
rufescent on the outer rectriccs, inclining to whitish on the 
inner web ; under surface of body huffy white, with rufous 
centres to the feathers, giving a distinctly striped appearance ; 
cere dull yellow; bill black; feet yellow; iris hazel. Total 
length, 19 inches; wing, is'3 ; tail, 87 ; tarsus, 1-4. 
Young Birds. — Dark brown like the old female, with pale 
tawny margins to the feathers of the upper surface, the white 
upper tail-coverts with broad tawny-buff edges and narrow 
shaft-lines of dark brown ; head and neck rich tawny colour, 
the feathers centred with dark brown and imparting a mottled 
appearance ; lores, eyebrow, and fore-part of ear-coverts white, 
the latter washed with rufous ; tail-feathers deep tawny colour, 
inclining to buff at the tip, and crossed with four or five black- 
ish bands, the central feathers uniform ashy-brown with five dis- 
tinct black bands ; throat whitish ; facial ruff and entire under 
surface of body clear tawny-buff, with a few streaks of reddish- 
brown on the upper breast, flanks, and upper wing-coverts. 
Characters.— Montagu’s Harrier is a smaller bird than the 
Hen-Harrier, and the adult male is easily distinguished from 
the male of the latter by the white thighs, zvhich have also rufous 
streaks, or spots. The throat and chest are ashy-grey. The adult 
female is distinguished from that of the Hen-Harrier by the 
simple test of the presence or absence of a notch in the outer 
web of the fifth primary. If there is no notch, then the bird 
is Montagu’s Harrier and not the Hen-Harrier. This same 
test will distinguish the young birds of the two species, and I 
