BLUE HAWK, OR HEN-HARRIER. 
39 
tarsi, wings, and tail, proportionally longer, but strictly corres¬ 
ponding with those of the male. The general colour above is 
chocolate-brown, more or less varied with yellowish rufous; the 
space round the orbits is whitish, and the auriculars are brown; 
the small stiff feathers forming the well marked collar, or ruff, 
are whitish rusty, blackish brown along the shaft; the feathers of 
the head and neck are of a darker brown, conspicuously margined 
with yellowish rusty; on the nucha, for a large space, the plumage 
is white at the base, as well as on the sides of the feathers, so 
that a little of that colour appears even without separating them; 
those of the back and rump are hardly, if at all, skirted with 
yellowish rusty, but the scapulars and wing-coverts have each four 
regular large round spots of that colour, of which those farthest 
from the base lie generally uncovered; the upper tail-coverts are 
pure white, often, but not always, with a few rusty spots, consti¬ 
tuting the so-called white rump, which is a constant mark of the 
species in all its states of plumage. The throat, breast, belly, 
vent, and femorals, pale yellowish rusty, streaked lengthwise with 
large acuminate brown spots darker and larger on the breast, and 
especially the under wing-coverts, obsolete on the lower parts of the 
body, which are not spotted. The quills are dark brown, whitish on 
the inner vane, and transversely banded with blackish; the bands 
are much more conspicuous on the inferior surface, where the 
ground-colour is grayish white. The tail is of a bright yellowish 
rusty, the two middle tail-feathers dark cinereous; all are pure 
white at the origin, and regularly crossed with four or five broad 
blackish bands; their tips are more whitish, and the inferior 
surface of a grayish white, like that of the quills, but very slightly 
tinged with rusty, the blackish bands appearing to great advantage, 
except on the outer feathers, where they are obsolete, being less 
defined even above. 
The young male is almost perfectly similar in appearance to 
