238 Dr. T. C. Jerdon's Supplementarij Notes 



sequcntly at my request, he forwarded to me, but which unfor- 

 tunately never reached me. 



M. Jules Verreaux was cei'tainly in error in referring it to 

 Falco melanogenys, which, as previously observed, is much more 

 near F. peregrinator. When I first saw Mr. Hume's then unique 

 specimen, I was, from a vague conception (for I had not seen a 

 specimen), inclined to consider it F. barbarus; and I see from 

 Mr. Gurney's notes that a specimen of this species is in the 

 Leyden Museum, labelled as F. barbarus. The bird was well known 

 to Hodgson, and is figured by him in two states of plumage as 

 Falco niicrurus ; but that name, I believe, has not been published. 

 The confluence of the cheek-stripe does not appear to be con- 

 stant, and is not strongly marked in Hodgson's drawings. I 

 should be inclined to look on it, theoretically, as a small local 

 race of F. peregrinus. If this Falcon is, as I understand from 

 Mr. Hume, the F. peregrinator apud Delme-Radcliffe, it is stated 

 by him to be common in the hills near Murree, and to feed 

 much on green Pigeons and also on the Chukor partridge. The 

 same gentleman records the curious fact (which I have also 

 noticed in other Falcons) of its propensity to fly at Bats. This 

 Falcon is usually called Shahin, or Kohi, sometimes with a 

 prefix, signifying black, the Kala Shahin. Hodgson's falconers 

 named it Jciwali Kuhi. 



10. Falco saceh. 



When I wrote the first volume of the ' Birds of India' I had 

 not seen a specimen of this Falcon. Since that time I have 

 seen very many, have had many trained ones in my possession, 

 and killed them in their winter haunts. One of the most 

 characteristic points of this Falcon is the long tail, marked with 

 round or roundish pale spots, not bars ; and this character 

 equally occurs in the bird of the year and the old bird. Young 

 birds vary much in the shade of their upper plumage, some 

 being quite dark brown, others pale earthy brown, some having 

 the head with a rufous tinge, most with a creamy or pale fulves- 

 cent hue — and also in the amount of the brown spots on the 

 lower surface, some having them so thickly spread that the 

 abdomen appears almost uniform brown, as in a young Jugger, 



