326 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1932 



Although it is much commoner in the Himalayas than in southern 

 India or Ceylon, it happened that I had in the latter country my 

 first and several subsequent visits with that most beautiful of the 

 smaller Asiatic birds of prey, the Indian peregrine falcon. I was 

 one day collecting specimens of small birds near the famous Sigiriya 

 Rock in the wilds of central Ceylon when like a bolt from the blue 

 the bird that I was hunting was snatched from before my very 

 eyes by a little hawk that I had seen a short time before flying about 

 in the neighborhood. In a minute or two he (or she) reached 

 the security of a near-by cliff with the body of what should have 

 been my bird. For several days I had ample opportunity of study- 

 ing this pretty peregrine falcon {Falco peregr'mus peregrinator) , 

 called in the vernacular the shahin (or shaheen). As usual with 

 birds of prey, the female is larger than the male, in the former 

 case nearly 18 inches long; wing, 13.50 inches. The head and nape 

 are jet black and the under parts from chest to tail coverts a deep, 

 rich brown. The mandibles are slate blue; cere and periorbital 

 skin and legs yellow; iris dark brown. The shahin is a shy and 

 rather rare bird, difficult of approach, frequenting ledges of high 

 cliffs and feeding exclusively on relatively large quarry, such as 

 pigeons, swifts, swallows, and parrakeets. Its swoop is as swift, 

 bold, and sure as that of the larger peregrines. The shahin is 

 famed in the literature of sport, its praises and exploits as a brave, 

 courageous, and beautiful " bird of chase " being sung and depicted 

 in many works on falconry. 



I wish it were possible for me to describe some of my favorite 

 Indian babblers — a numerous subfamily {Timaliinae) well known 

 in the East. (Parenthetically, this group does not deserve its trivial 

 name of " babblers.") One species is well known under the ver- 

 nacular name of the seven sisters {Turdoides griseus sfriatus). This 

 synonym is derived from the habit of going about in little groups 

 of from five to seven individuals, probably all members of the same 

 family. The " sisters " are tame, slow-moving, grayish-brown birds, 

 about 10 inches long, with white irides and yellowish eyelids, that 

 love to move about in cultivated localities or in the near-by jungle. 



The vernacular name of Pomatorhinus rnelanurus Blyth is the 

 scimitar-billed babbler, derived from its long curved bill. It differs 

 in many characters from other species of the subfamily, and is 

 rarely found outside the Himalayan Range, although a subspecies, 

 Pomatorhinus horsfieldii 7nelanurus, is not uncommon in Ceylon. 

 It is a shy, forest race and, like its northern relative, is usually 

 found in pairs. The north Indian variety is rather uniformly dark 

 brown with a whitish throat and a plainly marked white superciliary 

 streak from nape to bill, and is 8l^ inches long. The curved mandi- 

 bles measure nearly 2 inches in length. 



