| OCR Text |
Show 18 MR. A. ANDERSON ON THE [J than in any Indian-killed examples having the same peculiarity; and in India, according to m y experience, the opposite variety, viz. the white-billed ones, predominate. There is no reason why both forms should not intermingle at Aden. The specimens I allude to have their claws quite worn away, caused, no doubt, by the rocky nature of the ground. 8. FALCO PEREGRINUS, Gmel. On the 11th of February last I saw a Peregrine actually hunting by moonlight: the full moon was high up in the sky; and several stars had been visible for fully half an hour. Returning homewards to my camp through a marsh, I was startled by the sudden appearance of some ducks (Anas pcecilorhyncha), which dived simultaneously with their splash into the water. The Falcon towered overhead and then flew backwards and forwards several times over the same ground, almost skimming the surface of the water. The following morning I had several shots at this bird, but without success; the native fowlers who were engaged in netting wild fowl assured m e that they had seen her at that one place for a long time, and that she invariably roosted on a large bough of a mango tree, close to the edge of the jheel. The crepuscular habits of this Falcon have not been recorded before, so far as I am aware of. 9. FALCO PEREGRINATOR, Sund. On the 19th of November last I procured another specimen of this beautiful Falcon, making in all three females. This appears to be a fully adult bird : the head, nape, and cheek-stripe are almost black, and only one or two feathers are wanting to make it into " atriceps " of H u m e ; upper plumage generally slaty blue, getting lighter towards the tail-coverts, the whole of the feathers being more or less barred with blue of a darker shade ; tail unicolorous with the back, and barred with dark slaty blue ; chin, throat, and upper breast unspotted white, tinged with buff; from sternum downwards bright ferruginous rufous, barred on the flanks, and spotted on the abdomen with slaty blue; tibial plumes greyish, tinged with lavender, and minutely barred with blue of a light shade. The Shaheen alluded to in a former paper (P. Z. S. 1871, p. 678) is an immature bird: the whole of the upper plumage generally, including the tail, is dark cinereous or dusky black, the feathers of the back being edged with rufous, and the tail barred with the same colour ; the upper tail-coverts are blue, thus indicating a transitional stage; chin, throat, and upper breast as in the mature bird, but the feathers are dark-shafted ; lower breast, flanks, sternum, and tibials bright ferruginous rufous, the breast and flanks having longitudinal brown stripes, the sternum and tibials slightly barred with light blue. Of the varied country of the Doab the enormous jheels, woods, and plains have each its representative Falcon : the Bhyree affects swamps, the Shaheen wooded regions, especially in the vicinity of |
