THE HARRIERS. 
13 " 
may say that these characters, suggested as specific by Mi, 
Howard Saunders more than twenty years ago, have over and 
over again been proved by me to hold good. 
Montagu’s Harrier, like several other species of the genus 
Circus, is subject to melanism, and old birds arc sometimes 
found nearly black, while the young birds have also a melanistic 
phase, this being often the case in English killed specimens. 
Range in Great Britain — A spring and summer visitor, chiefly 
to the southern and eastern counties, in some of which it still 
breeds, recent instances having been recorded in the Isle of 
Wight, Dorsetshire, and Norfolk. It has also been known to 
nest in Wales, and even as far north as the Solway district in 
Western Scotland, but everywhere in the north of England it 
must be considered a rare and occasional visitor only. In Ire- 
land it has occurred on four occasions, in Co. Wexford and 
Co. Wicklow. 
Range outside the British Islands. — The present species does 
not extend its range so far north as the Elen-Harrier, and the 
nei<rhbourhood of St. Petersburg and the Gulf of Finland 
appear to constitute the northern limits of the species in 
Europe. In Central Europe and in Central and Southern 
Russia it breeds generally, and in Spain it is a resident in 
suitable localities, receiving a large accession of numbers in 
winter. At this season of the year it not only migrates to 
Northern Africa and the Canaries, but passes down the Nile 
Valley, even to the Cape Colony. Eastwards the species is 
found as far as Turkestan and South-western Siberia, but 
has never been recc rJed from Eastern Siberia. The eastern 
winter range extends to the Indian Peninsula and the Burmese 
Provinces. 
Habits. — This species is said by Colonel Irby to possess a 
lighter and more Owl-like flight than the other European 
Harriers, and the wings are longer in proportion than in the 
other species of the genus Circus. It arrives in Central Europe 
in March and April, and leaves in October. 
Not only during its winter migrations is the present species 
gregarious, but it appears frequently to nest in company, and 
Colonel Irby found a colony of fifteen or twenty pairs breeding 
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