BLUE HAWK, OR HEN-HARRIER. 
35 
After haying 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 accordance 
with nature on this point. It was perhaps with Linne, or at least 
with Buffon, Gmelin, Pennant, and Latham himself, who after¬ 
wards corrected it, that the error originated. Latham, confident 
of his own observations and those of Pennant, 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 afterwards 
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 extraor¬ 
dinary it may seem, from the inference he draws from it. Thus, 
to apply the principle in this instance, Latham might have recon¬ 
ciled 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 the dress of the Hen-Harrier, and that some Ring-tails 
would gradually change into Hen-Harriers. 
Whether or not the Marsh-Hawk of America was the same 
with the Ring-tail of Europe, Wilson would not take upon himself 
to pronounce, as he has left to his bird the distinctive name of 
Falco uliginosus; though he positively states, that in his opinion 
they are but one species, and even rejects as false, and not existing, 
the only character on which the specific distinction was based, that 
of the American having “ strong, thick, and short legs,” instead 
of having them long and slender. For want of opportunity 
however of actually comparing specimens from both continents, 
he could choose no other course than the one he has followed; 
