MARSH HARRIER. 
45 
These assertions, when applied to the particular eggs 
which each of the parties may themselves have seen, are 
no doubt perfectly correct. Mr. Selby, however, con¬ 
tradicts the statement in the u Index Ornithologicus” of 
Latham, and says, that they are “white, and not spotted.” 
With the descriptions of Montagu and Latham, taking 
them to refer, as I have done, to particular specimens of 
the eggs of the same species, I have no difficulty in 
agreeing, and regret that 1 cannot do so with that of 
Mr. Selby also. The eggs of the Marsh Harrier, although 
for the most part white, or slightly tinted with blue, are 
sometimes also spotted and smeared with brown, in the 
same manner as those of the hen harrier. 
This species and the common buzzard approximate 
most beautifully as far as relates to their mode of breed¬ 
ing, and form the connecting link between the genera 
Buteo and Circus . The common buzzard, as I have 
before shown, breeds in trees; its eggs are usually spotted, 
sometimes quite white. The eggs of the Marsh Harrier 
are most commonly white, but sometimes spotted; it 
almost always breeds on the ground, but will sometimes, 
assuming the habits of the common buzzard, breed in 
the fork of a large tree, in which place Montagu says he 
has himself found it; in such a situation the nest would, 
as he describes it, be formed of sticks and such like 
materials. In the fen-countries, its usual resort, the nest 
is composed of so large a quantity of flags, reeds, and 
sedges, as to raise it a foot, or a foot and a half above 
the ground. The eggs are usually four, sometimes, though 
not often, five in number; the time of incubation early 
in May. 
All the eggs of the Marsh Harrier which I have seen, 
upon the identity of which reliance could be placed, 
are considerably less than those of the common buzzard; 
