SIX months' bird collecting in EGYPT. 1 35 



remark to offer about the plumage of an immature female, 

 killed on the 22nd of April at Bellianeh. In colour it was 

 a dark brown above ; and below was marked with broad 

 longitudinal streaks of the same, moreover had none of 

 the luteous crown, except one or two very small feathers. 

 It was remarkably small for a hen bird, measuring only i6| 

 inches long, tarsus 2, wing I2|. We all hoped it might 

 turn out to be a Barbary Falcon, but my father has carefully 

 examined and identified it. There is a match for it in the 

 Norwich Museum ; and I saw another, only rather larger, 

 but in similar dark plumage, in the great hall at Karnak ; 

 so for the present it stands as a Lanner. 



The adult Lanners found in Egypt sometimes vary con- 

 siderably from the ordinary type, by presenting a deeper 

 tone of coloration especially on the upper parts, thus ap- 

 proaching the darker race which is found in Nubia and 

 Abyssinia, and which by some naturalists has been treated 

 as specifically distinct, under the name of F. tanyptenis. 

 In the case of an adult pair, shot by my companion and 

 myself whilst flying together from the same tree, on the 

 1 2th of April, in the neighbourhood of Esne, the female was 

 of the ordinary type of coloration, whilst the male was 

 much darker on all the upper surface except the tail ; the 

 head, nape, and upper interscapulary feathers, being even 

 quite as deeply coloured as in the adult of F. tanyptenis. 



Saker Falcon, Falco saker, Schlegel. 



I believe this Falcon was also seen, but as no specimen 

 was shot, I could not identify it with certainty. 

 My father thinks that Von Heuglin may have con- 

 founded Falco babyloniciis, Gurney, which he calls 

 "tolerably common," with the rufous phase of 

 F. barbarus. 



