350 FALCONID^. 



white ; upper parts generally umber-brown, not uniform, some 

 feathers having darker centres or shafts and paler border ; quills 

 brown above, light grey or white below, with blackish bars and 

 tips, inner webs white towards the base ; tail brown above, light 

 grey beneath, usually with 5 blackish cross-bars, more rarely 4, 

 the first concealed by the coverts, the last broadest, followed by 

 a whitish tip ; pale interspaces as a rule broader than dark bars, 

 and last pale interspace much broader than the others ; chin and 

 throat white, streaked with black, the black streaks generally 

 forming three longitudinal stripes, one median and two lateral ; 

 breast white with large spots, elongate, black, and generally fringed 

 with rufous ; abdomen and lower tail-coverts umber-brown, thighs 

 generally more rufous, and tarsus whitish, the feathers dark- 

 shafted as a rule throughout, especially on the legs ; smaller under 

 wing-coverts dull rufous, brown-shafted; greater lower wing-coverts 

 white with brown cross-bands ; axUlaries greyish brown with dark 



shafts. 



Young birds have the head and neck rufous-buff to buffy white, 

 generally but not always with dark centres or shaft-stripes to the 

 feathers, which in some very young birds have white tips ; feathers 

 of upper plumage brown, generally pale-edged; quills and tail 

 with more dark bands than in adults, there being 7 on the tail 

 including the subterminal one ; lower parts white or buff or pale 

 rufous, o-enerally with a few rufous-brown spots, darker at the 

 shafts ; as a rule the flanks, lower abdomen, thigh-coverts, lower 

 tail-coverts, and tarsal feathers are banded with pale rufous and 

 white ; traces of this banding are often found in older birds. 



Bill dark plumbeous, black at the tip ; cere dark leaden in adult, 

 yellow in young birds ; irides leaden grey, pale straw-colour, or 

 o-olden yellow ; feet yellow. The feathers of the tarsus do not 

 extend "quite to the base of the toes. 



Length of a male about 26 inches ; tail 11 ; wing 16 : of a 

 female— length 29 ; tail 12 ; wing 17 ; tarsus 4 ; bill from gape 1-8. 

 Ceylonese and some South Indian birds are considerably smaller 

 and measure : tail 9 to 10-5, wing 13-5 to 15*2. They have been 

 distinguished as Sinzaetus ceylonensis, and form a well-marked race, 

 but differing only, like so many animals from the extreme south 

 of India and Ceylon, in size, and therefore I think not to be 

 separated as a distinct species. S. sphynx of Hume, from Travan- 

 core, is an old bird of this Southern variety with, as often happens 

 in old birds, no white on the crest. 



Distribution. The Peninsula of India and Ceylon in well-wooded 

 tracts. Only an occasional straggler is found on the great Indo- 

 Gangetic ])lain of Northern India, as in the case of a specimen 

 obtained by Hume at Ettiwah ; as a rule the northern limit of this 

 bird from Mount Abu to Midnapore in Bengal is the edge of the 

 hilly country. 



Habits, ^c. Very similar to those of other Indian Spizaeti. This 

 is a forest bird, usually seen on trees, often, as Jerdon says, "on 

 the top of a high tree, where it watches for hares, partridges, 



