"Adult female.--Above brown slightly shaded with ashy, the dorsal feathers obsoletely margined with dull rufous; crown and hind neck tawny-buff, paler on the neck, all the feathers mesially streaked with brown; scapulars and wing-coverts margined and barred with tawny or fulvous, the least wing-coverts more conspicuously margined with rufous; quills brown, narrowly tipped with whitish, externally shaded with ashy gray, the secondaries less distinctly, and all barred across with darker brown; under surface of wing white, the dark bars showing very distinctly; lower back and rump brown, the feathers distinctly tipped with pale rufous; upper tail-coverts pure white; tail ashy gray, tipped with fulvous and crossed with five blackish bands, the subterminal one much the broadest, the ashy gray interspaces inclining to or replaced by pale tawny on the outer feathers; lores as well as a distinct eyebrow and ear-coverts buffy white; sides of face and of neck, as well as the facial ruff, rufous-buff streaked with dark brown; under surface of body creamy buff, with central pointed marks of rufous-brown to the feathers, more distinct on the fore neck and under wing- and tail-coverts; flank-feathers and axillars rufous-brown, with large rounded spots of creamy buff on both webs; under wing-coverts and thighs creamy buff, with irregular central streaks of rufous-brown occupying the major part of the greater under wing-coverts. Length, 584; wing, 394; tail, 279; tarsus, 79." (Sharpe.) "Adult female.--Brown above, the feathers throughout with pale rufous edges; tail-coverts white and rufous; tail with about six dark cross-bands, which disappear in old individuals; lower parts buff, with broad rufous-brown shaft-stripes. The quills are dark brown but become grayish in old birds. "Young birds so closely resemble those of C. æruginosus as to be indistinguishable at times. The pale head and neck-feathers are always striated in C. spilonotus, but the body, wings, and tail are uniform brown or variegated with buff on the wing-coverts, back, and breast. Generally, though not invariably, traces of bars will be found on some of the tail-feathers of C. spilonotus, but this occasionally happens in C. æruginosus also. "Length, of male, 508; tail, 235; wing, 394; tarsus, 89; tail of female, 254; wing, 419; tarsus, 94." (Blanford.) 174. CIRCUS MELANOLEUCOS (Pennant). PIED MARSH HAWK. Falco melanoleucos Pennant, Ind. Zool. (1769), 2, pl. 2. Circus melanoleucus Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1874), 1, 61; Hand-List (1899), 1, 245; Blanford, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1895), 3, 385; Oates, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1902), 2, 237; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 41; McGregor, Phil. Jour. Sci. (1907), 2, sec. A, 322, pl. 1.