BLUE HAWK, OR HEN HARRIER. 23 
been confounded amidst the chaotic indications of the 
present. 
Even Wilson was not free from the error which had 
prevailed for so long* a period in scientific Europe, that 
the ring-tail and hen-harrier were two species. Though 
he did not publish a figure of the present in the adult 
plumage of the male, he was well acquainted with it as 
an inhabitant of the Southern States ; for there can be 
no doubt that it is the much desired blue hawk which 
he was so anxious to procure ; the only land bird he 
intended to add to his Ornithology, or at least the only 
one he left registered in his posthumous list. It was 
chiefly because he was not aware of this fact, and 
thought that no blue hawk existed in America corres- 
ponding to the European hen-harrier, that Mr Sabine, 
in the Appendix to Franklin’s Expedition [as quoted in 
Synonyms,] 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 differences whichflie 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 species. 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 unob- 
served, may, after all, possibly be found in North 
America. At all events, Wilson’s, and the numerous 
American specimens that have passed under our exami- 
nation, 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, Kay, and others of the older 
authors, were perfectly in accordance with nature on 
this point. It was, perhaps, with Linne, or at least 
with Buffon, Gmelin, Pennant, and Latham himself, 
who afterwards corrected it, that the error originated. 
Latham, confident of his own observations, and those 
