Ornithological dictionary of British birds / By G. Montagu.

  • George Montagu
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ornithological dictionary of British birds / By G. Montagu. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    77/666 page 9
    It would have been a most desirable object to have obtained the female, but unfortunately we were too late; it was totally destroyed. There was, however, no longer any doubt that the colour of that sex was brown, not very unlike the general appearance of the ringtail, having been taken for such by Mr. Tucker, upon a cursory view, when he took down the male. But it is singularly fortunate that in the same year Mr. Tucker should himself take a nest of this obscure species with young, which he at- tempted to rear, under the idea that they were hen-harriers. The nest was discovered in the month of July, on the ground, amongst furze, containing three young birds and an addled egg, which last was white. Two of the young hawks continued alive till the summer of the following year, and were evidently, from their dispro- portionate size, of different sexes. About the beginning of August they began to moult, plainly discovering that they were not hen- harriers as before suspected, but actually the birds in question. Un- fortunately at this most interesting conjuncture, the female made her escape before she had nearly completed her mature plumage, and the only part we could obtain of her was an outer feather of the tail that had been broken off, and was evidently of recent growth by not being completely expanded at the base. This feather has five bars of ferru- ginous, with alternate rufous-white on both webs; towards the end, the dark bars incline to dusky. In the latter end of November the male was by some accident killed in the middle of his moulting, when assuming the feathers of maturity, and was in a mutilated state sent to us for examination; the descrip- tion of which is as follows. The head, neck, part of the scapulars, and most of the lesser coverts of the wings, still possess the nestling brown feathers, which are similar to those of the immatured male hen-harrier, or the adult ringtail ; but the ferruginous-brown is brighter, and more inclining to dull orange: all the smaller feathers upon the under part of the wings are bright ferruginous, differing most essentially in colour from that part of the hen-harrier of either sex, or in any state of change, and which in the adult male of that species is invariably white. The under scapulars on one side are similar to those of the adult, elegantly barred ferruginous and white; but on the other side these feathers have not been changed, and are plain ferruginous: the under parts of the body and thighs are nearly matured, being white, and possessing the bright ferruginous streaks down the shafts of the feathers: the quills, and the greater coyerts, are mostly matured, but a few of the nestling feathers
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