34 
BLUE HAWK, OR HEN-HARRIER. 
The F. cineraceus has two white spots near the eyes, which are 
not in the F. cyaneus. The young of the former is beneath rusty 
without spots. Thus slight, but constant differences, are seen 
to represent a species, while the most striking discrepancies in 
colour, size, and (not in this, but in other instances) even of form, 
prove mere variations of sex or age! We cannot wonder at the 
two real species having always 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 HawJc 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 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 differences 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 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 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. 
