828 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI. 



Colouration, 



Measurements. 



Habits, etc. 



birds, 

 ; legs 

 birds ; 



Dark brown throughout usually. "Head tawny 

 or rufous with blackish shaft-stripes ; a patch behind 

 the eye including the ear-coverts, uniform dark 

 brown ; first five primaries and large primary-coverts 

 blackish, later primaries and secondaries coloured 

 like back ; all the quills more or less mottled wiuh 

 whitish on the inner webs towards the base, and 

 banded with blackish brown cross-bars, tail brown 

 above, whity brown below, with numerous darker 

 cross-bands, faint and obsolete in some (probably 

 old) birds ; lower parts rather paler than upper, 

 whitish at the chin, and generally, but not always, 

 becoming tinged with rufous on the abdomen and 

 lower tail coverts, and always dark-shafted through- 

 out, with pale or rufous stripes on each side of the 

 dark shaft-lines. Lower wing-coverts, like breast, 

 except the larger coverts, which are ashy brown 

 with pale bands. 



Young birds have broad buff or white shaft-stripe 

 to the feathers of the head (except the ear-coverts), 

 neck and lower surface, and buff or whitish tips to 

 the feathers of the back, wing-coverts, scapulars, 

 secondaries and tail-feathers." (Blanford.) 



Bill black, cere and gape yellow in old 

 greenish grey in the young ; irides brown 

 and feet yellow, pale greenish grey in young 

 claws black. (Blanford.) 



Length of females about 24 ; tail 12 ; wing 18-5 ; 

 tarsus 2-1 ; mid-toe without claw 1-6 ; bill from gape 

 ] -7. Males are smaller — length about 22*5, wing 

 17-5. (Blanford.) 



This is without exception the commonest bird of 

 prey in India, except in the higher ranges of the 

 Himalayas. Found in every town and village from 

 the plains to the Hill Stations of Simla, Dalhousie 

 and in fact wherever one might expect to find a 

 slaughter-house. It lives for the most part on offal 

 and practically nothing comes amiss to the Pariah 

 Kite, from a native sweet-meat to a dry bone. 



It is by no means uncommon to see a kite swoop 

 down and take a clawful from the contents of a 

 sweet-hawkers basket on a railway station, and on 

 one occasion the writer saw an entire basketful 

 turned over and the contents shot off the platform 

 on to the lines, under a carriage. In this case the 

 claw of the kite must have caught, for a second 

 either in the basket work or a bit of string. 



It did nob prevent the hawker from retrieving 

 his lost property and disposing of it to the pas- 

 sengers, before the train left, with the added 

 advantage of a little extra weight ! Quite lately the 

 writer and a friend were having breakfast under a 

 tree. The friend had just transferred a liberal 

 helping of Irish stew to his plate, which was in his lap 

 and was on the point of bringing his knife and 

 fork to bear on the delicacies, when a kite swooped 



