396 
BLUE HAWK, OR HEN-HARRIER. 
Franklin’s Expedition, above quoted, persisted in declaring that 
the marsh-hawk was a distinct species peculiar to America, of 
which he supposed the Hudson’s Bay ring-tail to be the young. 
The dilferences which he detected on comparing it with the 
European ring-tail, must have been owing to the different 
state of plumage of his specimen of this ultra-changeable spe- 
cies. If, however, he had not mentioned the colours merely, 
as bringing it nearer to the ash-coloured falcon of Montague, 
we might be inclined to believe that the specimen he examined 
was indeed a young bird of that species, which, though as yet 
unobserved, may, after all, possibly be found in North America. 
At all events, Wilson’s, and the numerous American specimens 
that have passed under our examination, were all young hen- 
harriers. 
After having stated, that the error of considering the hen- 
harrier and ring-tail as different species had prevailed for years 
in Europe, it is but just to mention, that Aldrovandi, Brisson, 
Ray, and others of the older authors, were perfectly in accord- 
ance with nature on this point. It was perhaps with Linne, 
or at least with Buffon, Gmelin, Pennant, and Latham him- 
self, who afterwards corrected it, that the error originated. 
Latham, confident of his own observations, and those of Pen- 
nant, who had found males of the species said to be the female 
of the Falco cyaneus (hen-harrier), and not reflecting that these 
males might be the young, exclaims, Authors have never 
blundered more than in making this bird (the ring-tail) the 
same species with the last mentioned, (hen-harrier;)” an 
opinion that he was afterv/ards obliged to recant. In physical 
science, we cannot be too cautious in rejecting facts, nor too 
careful in distinguishing, in an author’s statement, what has 
passed under his own eyes, however extraordinary it may seem, 
from the inference he draws from it. Thus, to apply the prin- 
ciple in this instance, Latham might have reconciled the fact 
of males and females being found in the plumage of the ring- 
tail ; with the others, that no females were ever found under 
