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Show 18/6.] RAPTORIAL BIRDS OF INDIA. 315 and thigh-coverts, whereas the author I have quoted (as in fact do Jerdon, Sharpe, and Humet) gives the breast only as bluish grey, and the rest of the underparts (of the adult male) as white. Nowhere do I find the whole of the underparts described as bluish grey the same as the back; so that the present example would appear to be unique in this respect "J;. The following are its dimensions :-length 17*6, wing 14*5, tail from vent 9*4, tarsus 2-3. The irides were bright yellow ; the legs and feet, were dingy or pale yellow ; the bill and claws were black ; and the cere was greenish yellow. But though this bird was doomed to succumb to the cause of science in a foreign country, the most melancholy event in its history is connected with its life in far more civilized climes than India; for its broken leg clearly testifies to the narrow escape it has had from falling a victim to the vengeance of some one's zealous game-preserver, most probably while acting as one of the "sanitary police of Nature." The left tarsus has the appearance of having been snapped in a trap, about the middle of the joint; the skin, which apparently had not been severed, has enabled the broken portion to reunite sideways ; and though the fracture has healed in a most remarkable manner, the lower part of the leg hangs by the skin, which has assumed the form of a thick tegument; so that for all practical purposes, excepting perhaps for roosting, the injured leg could not have been of any use ; the broken stump protrudes beyond the join by a quarter of an inch. The range of Montagu's Harrier in Northern India is very puzzling. In the jungle tracts of Bundelkhand (south of the Jumna) it is far from uncommon, and in parts of Oudh and Rohilkhand (north of the Ganges) it is pretty generally distributed ; so that its absence in the Duab, an enormous tract of country, large areas of which are in every way suited to its habits, is very singular indeed. *53. CIRCUS MELANOLEUCUS, Gmel. It is with much pleasure that I announce for the first time the advent of this unexpected addition (essentially an inhabitant of the humid country of Eastern Bengal and the Tarais generally) to the comparatively speaking arid plains of the North-western Provinces. The specimen in question fell to the shot of m y friend Mr. Luard, on the 10th of February, when we were out shooting on the bauks of the Ganges, near Futtehgurh. When shot it had just alighted on the ground, aud was in the act of eating a large green grasshopper; its crop contained orthopterons insects of various kinds. It is an exceedingly fine male in the pied livery of the adult bird; its large, lustrous, gold-coloured eyes contrast strangely with its black and white plumage, giving it in life a most beautiful appearance. Carefully measured in the flesh it gave the following results, which, t Cf. ' Birds of India,' vol. i. p. 97; ' Catalogue of Accipitres,' vol. i. p. 66 I Rougb Notes,' p. 303. | Since the above was written I bave received two male specimens of C. cineraceus from Europe; and in both examples the breast only is bluish grey. |