THE FALCONS. 1 87 



clouded eggs, is covered with small dots of rufous and larger 

 blotches of chestnut. In some examples in the Museum the 

 whole egg is uniformly clouded with brownish-red, so that 

 there is scarcely any indication of mottling. Axis, 1*4-1 -65 ; 

 diam., i'2. 



III. THE MERLIN. FALCO ^ESALON. 



Faico ccsalon, Tunstall, Orn. Brit. i. p. i (1771); Macg. Erit. 

 B. iii. p. 317 (1840); Newton, ed. Yarr. Brit. B. i"^. p. 74 

 (1871); Dresser, B. Eur. vi. p. ?>t,, pis, 380, 381 (1875); 

 B. O. U. List Br. B. p. 103 (1883) ; Seebohm, Br. B. i. p. 

 34 (1883); Saunders, Man. Brit. B. p. 341 (1889); Lil- 

 ford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xvi. (1890), part xx. (1891). 

 Faico regulus^ Pall. ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. p. 406 (1874). 

 Adult Male. — General colour above clear slaty-blue, paler on 

 the rump and upper tail-coverts, with distinct black shafts to 

 all the feathers ; head dark slate-colour, with black shaft- 

 stripes ; forehead, lores, and sides of face whitish, with black 

 shaft-lines ; eyebrow and nape strongly mixed with rufous ; the 

 ear-coverts with a grey tinge on the hinder part ; throat pure 

 white ; sides of neck and under surface of body white, 

 strongly washed with rufous, the feathers streaked with 

 black down the middle, these stripes becoming narrower 

 on the thighs and more distinct on the under tail-coverts; 

 under wing-coverts white, spotted and barred with black; 

 quills black, barred with white on the inner web, and washed 

 with bluish-grey near the base of the outer wcId ; the inner 

 secondaries bluish-grey like the back, and with the same black 

 shafts ; tail slaty-blue, tipped with white, with a broad sub-ter- 

 minal band of black on the inner web, and with remains of 

 other black bands on the under surface ; cere yellow ; bill 

 bluish horn-colour, the tip darker ; feet yellow, claws black ; 

 iris dark brown. Total length, 10 inches; culmcn, 07 ; wing, 

 7-9; tail, 4-5; tarsus, 1-45. 



Adult Female. — Like the male in plumage, but a trifle larger. 

 I fancy that I was the first to point out, as I did in 1874, that 

 the fully adult female of the Merlin resembles the male in 

 plumage, and I still believe this to be a fact, though it must 

 be difficult to prove the truth of it in England, where Hawks 



