38 
BLUE HAWK, OR HEN-HARRIER. 
grass, bushes, or in the low forks or branches of trees; the female 
laying four or five round eggs, entirely white, or whitish, without 
spots. During the nuptial season, the males are observed to soar 
to a considerable height, and remain suspended in the air for a 
length of time. 
The Male Hen-Harrier is eighteen inches long, and forty-one 
in extent; the bill is blackish horn colour, the cere greenish yellow, 
almost hidden by the bristles projecting from the base of the bill; 
the irides are yellow. The head, neck, upper part of the breast, 
back, scapulars, upper wing-coverts, and middle tail-feathers pale 
bluish gray, somewhat darker on the scapulars; the upper coverts 
being pure white, constitute what is called a white rump, though 
that part is of the colour of the back, but a shade lighter; breast, 
belly, flanks, thighs, under wing-coverts, and under tail-coverts 
pure white, without any spot or streak. The wings measure 
nearly fourteen inches, and when closed, reach only two-thirds the 
length of the tail, which is eight and a half inches long, extending 
by more than two inches beyond them; the primaries, of which 
the first is shorter than the sixth, the second and fifth subequal, 
and the third and fourth longest, are blackish, paler on the edges, 
and white at their origin, which is more conspicuous on their 
inferior surface; the secondaries have more of the white, being 
chiefly bluish gray on the outer web only, and at the point, which 
is considerably darker. The tail is but very slightly rounded. 
All the tail-feathers have white shafts, and are pure white beneath; 
the middle ones are bluish gray, the lateral almost purely white; 
somewhat grayish on the outer vane, and obsoletely barred with 
blackish gray on the inner. The feet are bright yellow, and the 
claws black; the tarsus is three inches long, and feathered in front 
for an inch. 
The Female is larger, being between twenty and twenty-one 
inches long, and between forty-four and forty-seven in extent; the 
