n able to glean any intelligence. Probably,
however, it has occurred at other times and been overlooked. As it may
have occasionally been mistaken for the more common Common Buzzard, I
may say that it is always to be distinguished from that bird by the
feathered tarsus. On the wing, perhaps, when flying overhead, the most
readily observed distinction is the dark band on the lower part of the
breast. I have, however, seen a very dark variety of the Rough-legged
Buzzard, in which nearly the whole of the plumage was a uniform dark
chocolate-brown, and consequently the dark band on the breast could not
be seen even when one had the bird in one's hand, and had it not been
for the feathered tarsus this bird might easily have been mistaken for a
very dark variety of the Common Buzzard, and when on the wing it would
have been impossible to identify it. Indeed, though it was immediately
distinguishable from the Common Buzzard by its feathered legs, there was
some little difficulty about identifying it, even when handling it as a
skin.

Professor Ansted includes the Rough-legged Buzzard in his list, but
only marks it as occurring in Guernsey. There is no specimen at present
in the Museum.

12. MARSH HARRIER. _Circus Oeruginosus_, Linnaeus. French, "Busard
des Marais."--This seems to be the least common of the Harriers in the
Channel Islands, though it does occur occasionally, and perhaps more
frequently than is generally supposed.

There are two specimens in the Museum in Guernsey both in immature
plumage; in that state, in fact, in which this bird most commonly
occurs, and in which it is the Bald Buzzard of Bewick.

Miss C.B. Carey records one in the November number of the 'Zoologist'
for 1874 in the following words:--"In the May of this year an adult male
Marsh Harrier was found in Herm. Unfortunately it got into the hands of
some person who, I believe, kept it too long before bringing it over to
be preserved, so that all that remains of it is the head." I had no
opportunity of examining this bird myself, not even the head, but I am
disposed to doubt its being fully adult, as it seems to me much more
probable that it was much in the same state as those in the Museum, in
which state it is much more common than in the fully adult plumage. Miss
Carey seems only to have seen the head herself, so there may easily
have been a mistake on this point.

Mr. MacCulloch writes me word that a Marsh Harrier was killed in Herm in
May,