F. ruginosus, Lin. &c. Moor Buzzard, Prov. Duck .Hawk, or White-headed Harpy. Brown ; crown of the head luteons ; cere and legs yellow. The prevailing hue is chocolate brown. tinged more or less with ferruginous, and brightest in the male. The female weighs about twenty eight ounces and a half, and is twenty-three inches and a half in length; the male is somewhat less, weighing about twenty-one ounces, and measuring twenty-one inches in length ; but both are subject to considerable varieties in their markings. They chiefly affect swampy moors, and barren situations in the neighbourhood of pools, rivers, and lakes. Instead of perching on lofty trees, like several of their congeners, they watch for their prey on the ground, on a stone, or a bush ; they fly heavily, horizon tally, and at a little distance from the surface of the soil, attacking water fowls, fish, frogs, toads, and aquatic vermes ; their long legs enabling them to wade on the margins of the waters. They have likewise recourse to rabbits, and other small game ; nor do they disdain lizards, and some of the larger insects. Being holder and more active than the common buzzards, when pursued, they face about, and make a vigorous defence ; and both the hobby and the kestril shun their approach. Although the nest is sometimes met with in the fork of a large tree, it is much more commonly made on the ground, among short wood, furze, or fern, and composed of sticks. rushes, or coarse grass. In this the female deposits three or four eggs, considerably smaller than those of the common buzzard, and, according to Montagu, who observed them in the nest, " perfectly white, without any spots," whereas Vieillot as serts, that they are whitish, with brownish spots, inter mingled with some others of a decided brown." In the breeding season, when the female is employed in incuba tion, the male will soar to a considerable height, and re main suspended on wing for a long length of time. The moor buzzard is but sparingly dispersed over most of the countries of Europe, although it seems to abound in some particular districts ; thus, Montagu remarks, that it is the most common of the falcon tribe about the sandy flats of the coast of Carmarthen, where he saw no fewer than nine of them regaling on the carcass of a sheep; and Cetti acquaints us, that it has greatly multiplied in Sardinia. in former times, it was used by falconers, for the Chace of rabbits, partridges, and quails; hut it has long since been rejected, as a bird of ignoble flight.
F. cyaneus, Lin. &c. including Pygargus, which is now proved to be the female ; and one or other of these desig nations comprises F. albzcans, F. communis, E, albus of Frisch, F. Montanus, B, griseus, Bohemicus, Iludsonius, and Buffonii, Gmel. F. rubiginosus, and ranivorus, Lath. F. europhigistus, Daud. and F. strigiceps.
Blue Hawk of Edwards ; Ring-tail, and Hen Harrier, of Pennant and others, and Katabilla of the Orcauians. M. Temminck proposes, as two discriminating characters, the termination of the wings at three fourths of the length of the tail, and the equal length of the third and fourth quills.
The technical definition of the male is, whitish-grey, with a collar of stiffish brown and white feathers ; and dusky quill feathers; and that of the female brown, with ferrugi nous variegations, a collar of stiffish brown and white fea thers, white rump, and dusky quill feathers. But the va rietiesormarking, induced by age and other circumstances, are too numerous and minute to be detailed, and have con trit.uted to involve the history of the species in mystery, paradox, and incongruity. The question relative to the eific identit v f the two sexes has bean ably discussed by the judicious Latham, in the Supplement to his Sy nopsis ; but the interesting facts, briefly recorded by Colonel Montagu, in the Supplement to his Ornithological Dic tionary, from a more extended communication, insertee in the ninth volume of the Linnean Transactions, must be allowed to be decisive.
This species occurs, more or less diffused, and variously modified, from the polar regions to the heart of Africa. In France, Germany, and Great Britain, it is sufficiently common, as likewise in Southern Siberia, and Hudson's Bay. It flies low, skimming along the surface, in quest of prey ; delights in marshy situations, and feeds on lizards, and other small reptiles and birds. It has its English ap pellation front its persecutions in the poultry-yard.
M. Gerardin relates, that he procured two young ones from the nest of a Hen-Harrier, placed in the fork of a tree; so that it does not invariably nidificate on the ground, or in bushes, though it sometimes selects rushes, or grain that has been sown in winter. The nestlings were, at first, reared on the livers of calves and oxen, of which they were very greedy, and of which they swallowed morsels as large as walnuts. One of them, however, soon died, on the shooting of its first quill-feathers ; the other, which was a female, lived for the space of a year, eating all kinds of meat, either raw or cooked, and also small birds, which it deplumed very neatly before eating them. Its fami liarity, which was at first very amusing, afterwards dege nerated into a troublesome and outrageous deportment, which ultimately cost it its life. When admitted, for ex ample, into the dining-room, it would spring on the table, survey the dishes, and, in a twinkling, bear off in its talons a lump of boiled beef, of which it was passionately fond, fly precipitately out at the door, and devour its morsel in a corner at leisure. When scarcely six months old, it ex ercised despotic government in the house, driving the cats from their meals, and attempting to pick out their eyes. A friend of M. Gerardin happening one day to call at the house, accompanied by his pointer, the hawk no sooner perceived the latter, than it sprang on the poor animal, seized him by the throat, and, with a single stroke of its bill, deprived him of an eye, when the owner of the dog inflicted summary vengeance, by dispatching the aggressor with a blow of his cane on the head.